Excavations at the Jaffna Fort have uncovered evidence of a guard tower belonging to the earlier Portuguese fort that stood on the site before the Dutch rebuilt it, NewsFirst reported on Wednesday.
The dig is being carried out under the Jaffna Project of the Central Cultural Fund. Excavation officers said the remains will be made available for public viewing in future, though no date was given.
Two forts on one site
Excavation Officer Madhuka Dilshan Perera said the fort was originally built by the Portuguese as a square structure, and was captured and reconstructed by the Dutch in 1658 into the pentagonal, star-shaped fort that stands today.
Crucially, he said, the Dutch did not clear the earlier fort away. They incorporated parts of the Portuguese structure into the new one — which is why a Portuguese guard tower can turn up beneath a Dutch star fort more than three and a half centuries later.
The star plan the Dutch imposed was the standard European military answer to cannon: angled bastions that cover one another with flanking fire and leave no blind spot at the base of the walls. The square Portuguese design it replaced offered no such protection, and the rebuild made Jaffna one of the largest fortifications the Dutch raised in Asia.
A date worth noting
Perera dated the original Portuguese fort to 1613, and the guard tower with it.
That is earlier than the standard published chronology of the site, which places the Portuguese capture of Jaffna in 1617 and the building of their fort around 1619, with some accounts putting the main construction works later still. The Dutch capture in 1658 is not in dispute.
NewsFirst reported the 1613 date as given by the excavation officer without comment. It is not clear whether it reflects a distinct phase of works on the site, a different reading of the evidence now being recovered, or a slip in transcription — and the report does not say.
Continuing work in the north
The find adds to a run of excavation results reported this year, including an underground clay pipeline and citizens’ quarter at Yapahuwa and a fifth phase of digging at Polonnaruwa examining the ancient kingdom’s decline.
The report did not say how far the excavation has progressed, what condition the tower remains are in, or when the site might open to visitors. No other verified Sri Lankan newsroom had published its own report of the discovery at the time of writing.
Source: Portuguese-Era Guard Tower Discovered At Jaffna Dutch Fort — NewsFirst, August 26.
