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Saving a historic hospital from certain death View from courtyard C2 1983 Source:Sundaytimes Behind those sturdy pillars, past the broad corridors and into the courtyard, this new book unravels a murky saga.  And who better than the man whose own career was intertwined with its conservation, to tell the story. Gamini Wijesuriya describes it as a ‘tortuous effort’. Looking at it now, so beautifully restored, it is hard to imagine the magnitude of work that went into saving the historic Dutch Hospital from certain demolition and indeed the perseverance required to accomplish the task. Dr. Gamini Wijesuriya was the former Director of Conservation at the Department of Archaeology, the first Asian heritage professional to become a staff member of the International Centre for the Study of Restoration and Preservation of Cultural Property (ICCROM) in Rome. Now a Special Advisor to the Director-General ICCROM and to the Director of WHITRAP (the UNESCO ...

May 30, 2023 Posted by In Articles Tagged , , ,
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Sigiriya: Sri Lanka’s ancient water gardens-by Katie Lockhart Source:Dailynews A complex masterpiece of irrigation engineering design, Sigiriya’s artfully designed water gardens required structural planning way ahead of its time. Orange sand particles twinkled in the sun as a lone motorbike kicked up dust in its wake. It was 09:30 on a bright Monday morning and the temperature was already creeping past 30C. A family of toque macaque monkeys swung from verdant tree branches and rolled playfully in the hot sand in front of us. But we barely took notice; we couldn’t take our eyes off the 200m-high monolith in the distance. Sigiriya, an ancient rock fortress and former royal palace, is one of Sri Lanka’s most visited and best-known sights, attracting just more than one million visitors in 2019. But on this sunny day in May 2021, my partner and I were the only two people there. Dating back to ...

Jan 3, 2022 Posted by In Articles Tagged , ,
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Sigiriya: Sri Lanka’s ancient water gardens-by Katie Lockhart-by Katie Lockhart Source:Dailynews A complex masterpiece of irrigation engineering design, Sigiriya’s artfully designed water gardens required structural planning way ahead of its time. Orange sand particles twinkled in the sun as a lone motorbike kicked up dust in its wake. It was 09:30 on a bright Monday morning and the temperature was already creeping past 30C. A family of toque macaque monkeys swung from verdant tree branches and rolled playfully in the hot sand in front of us. But we barely took notice; we couldn’t take our eyes off the 200m-high monolith in the distance. Sigiriya, an ancient rock fortress and former royal palace, is one of Sri Lanka’s most visited and best-known sights, attracting just more than one million visitors in 2019. But on this sunny day in May 2021, my partner and I were the only two people there. ...

Dec 11, 2021 Posted by In Articles Tagged
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Ruminations on Sri Lanka’s Ancient Past-By Seneka Abeyratne Source:Island Let us now turn our attention to Sri Lanka’s prehistory corresponding to the Stone Age. Although it is possible that a Paleolithic, or Early Stone Age, culture existed in the island more than one hundred thousand years ago, the archaeological evidence in support of this hypothesis is somewhat sketchy. On the other hand, the discovery of rare fossil remains of homo-erectus in Balangoda, a region in south-central Sri Lanka, is strong archaeological evidence that the island was probably inhabited by primitive ape-like men about 34,000 BP. “These anatomically modern prehistoric humans belonged to what are called the Balangoda cultures,” as stated by de Silva, K.M. ‘A History of Sri Lanka’, fifth edition, 2016. The stone implements found in the island are mostly of the Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age, type which date back to about 28,000 BP and are associated with ...

Nov 28, 2021 Posted by In Articles Tagged , ,
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From Oceania to East Africa-By Seneka Abeyratne Meeting of Kuveni and Prince Vijaya. (Painting by Prasanna Weerakkody). The radical view is that a relatively advanced civilisation existed in the island ‘prior’ to the arrival of Prince Vijaya and that the evolution of Sri Lanka into a modern geo-political entity took place through a complex process of integration, differentiation and creative synthesis Ruminations on Sri Lanka’s Ancient Past – Part III Historical evidence suggests that Sri Lanka had regular trading and cultural connections with the empire of Sri Vijaya in Palembang, South Sumatra. Legend has it that the Radala, noble families of Sri Lanka, and the Raden, noble families of Indonesia, frequently intermarried. It is something of a mystery that though the island’s location is subcontinental, its character is more Southeast-Asian. We can make sense of this paradox only if we accept the premise that in ancient times there were continual ...

Nov 8, 2021 Posted by In Articles Tagged , ,
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