කටුස්සා Chameleon

Folklore and Archaeology: Basics - by Thilanka Siriwardana

Every human being is nostalgic about the past and tends to introduce their versions of the history by using the available materials in the present. This approach leads people to rely it as a hobby or a leisure time activity for research on the past and becomes separate disciplines now known as 'archaeology' and 'history'. However, it is apparent the folklore is usually ignored from these main streams. It remains among the folks for fill the gaps in their knowledge about the past. Are that archaeology and history teaching in universities were able to fill these nostalgic gaps of commoners at an adequate level? We left that to answer that later and at this moment discuss the possibility of using folklore in archaeological studies.

‘Archaeology’ is a discipline or academic study about history through interpretations by using material remains. Folklore was commonly understood as the traditions and beliefs of people below the level of ‘high culture’ (this line is a rigorous place which modern academic mislead all the knowledge system). This includes myths, folktales, legends, folk songs, proverbs, riddles, games, place names, regular ceremonies, rituals and many others. It is simply traditional and comes from the oral and performances. In here we can see that two disciplines have different routes, the first based on materials and second on oral tradition (material vs concepts). Though it differs from the source, both are once interrelated with each for revealing the past.

While some archaeologists attempted to apply folklore to archaeological material, they often found that folk tradition and archaeological remains did not match, and folklore are not even true. Due to that reason, they dispelled the folklore from sources of archaeological data. We cannot argue that folklore contains accurate, reliable representations of past behaviours, beliefs or events. However even archaeology is not pure science, and its data about the past which perceived and interpreted are problematic because it is usually people oriented. Also, interpretations can be exceptional and characteristic to individual sites.
Consequently, correlate folklore with archaeology is not an attempt for matching nescience with science but adjusts the common features together.  Folklore gives us a broader understanding of the past as perceived, remembered and made significant by both past and present people. Because these features are also common to archaeology, both can correlate with each and can enrich by creating new approaches to thinking about common questions and indeed raising new questions.

In the early period of archaeology, details in folklore are followed by the antiquarians and treasure hunters who search for a fortune and relics. Heinrich Schliemann proved to correct his belief in the accuracy of Homer’s account of the Trojan War, even though the story had not been written down for almost half a millennium. In an instant he reveals a mask of a King from Troy, he said ‘I saw the face of Agamemnon’. If that was the case in the Iliad, then why not elsewhere? The memories of Stonehenge in England, Megalithic remains of Spain, Roman Goddess Isis worship in Sweden, the Neolithic culture of India survived with folklore and subjected to document in some centuries or millenniums later.

Oral traditions are not a phenomenon that is dying out or decaying or showing any sign of being in decline. Certainly, it ages, and one part of it and then another may die off. However, it also capable of breeding, it grows, it spreads, it feeds on other matters, and it has the greatest ability to adapt to changing circumstances. The advantage of this is that it conveys what people think of their words and actions, what they might not be able to express in everyday conversation. Similar to it, archaeological remains not vanishing forever but transforming by site formation processes. The final issue is decoding the evidence back.

Folklore is not static. As above mentioned, it is open to changes.  On that reason, folklores does not an essentially gives a sense of time. In archaeology, we mightily concerned with time and space. However, folklore usually goes as ‘once upon a time... (In Sinhala - ekomath eka kaleka)’  or ‘once upon……. (In Sinhala - ekomath eka rataka). However, the events in these stories are often sequential and expressed in very human terms. By that archaeologist now can turn to more than one way of study and take detail into a one period.
Further, it will allow archaeologists to consider new ideas and enter into interpretations we might not even otherwise consider. Because of the individuals in the past had multiple perceptions, understanding and experience as same as we have today. We can view the relation of archaeology and folklore an endeavour open to various approaches and perspectives.

Further, there is a changing cultural value in archaeology and folklore. Through the ages, both above give values to monuments and that cultural value can be decoded by working both disciplines together by incorporating local folklore into public interpretations of archaeological sites. Both are gaining the interest of local populations either.

Finally, folklore as the people’s natural and intuitive way of thinking and acting, it allows archaeologists to interpret past. This dialogue between archaeology and folklore is a union for facing some exciting challenges and for solving mysterious puzzles in the depth of the lag of time. 

Australia - Some moments

Katoomba Australian Buddhist Temple, New South Wales

View of Opera house and Harbour Bridge, Sydney

Winter, A statue at Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney

Summer, A statue at Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney

View of Sydney city from a ferry

A volcano, Malaysia

Vijayaramaya, Anuradhapura (wijayaramaya)

photo - Thilanka Siriwardana, 2014

http://kln.academia.edu/ThilankaSiriwardana/Papers/1638126/Abstract_-_Transformation_of_the_outline_of_Trincomalee

5th Research Conference Abstracts, pp. 227, © 2012, The royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka.

Reading for ancient maps: Transformation of the outline of Trincomalee - Koddiyar Bay and its vicinity

Thilanka Manoj Siriwardana,

Assistant Lecturer,

Department of Archaeology,

University of Kelaniya,

thilanka.siriwardana@gmail.com

Map is a document which physical as well as cultural features on earth are depicted. Ancient maps of Sri Lanka were depicted on different map projections. These maps were produced in the ‘age of discovery’ which has been at Europe since 15th century and continued into early 17^th  century. The maps and charts created in this period about trading routes gradually became the global mapping of the world with more accurate details by bringing up to date. Cartographers are promptly engage in this work. The different map projections they prepared gave a difficult or impossible task to present researchers while locating exact places or when compare them with the present day maps, because the geographical entities on ancient maps are not corresponded well with those in the modern atlases. But decoding of the ancient maps with its existing traces is opening a way to study ancient maps. Aim of this research is to study significant historic places from ancient maps accordingly with the changes of cartography. For this we have selected Trincomalee - Koddiyar bay and its vicinity area for example of study. Area selected due to its immense value all along the political, economical and naval history of the country. Two methods used to identify the changes accurately. First is made comparison of coordinators and outline of the land with the modern maps and secondly made the comparison the names marked in the map. The gradual unfolding outline of the Trincomalee can be studied with maps belong to the period before 18th century (from Ptolemy’s Taprobana Insula of 14th cent. CE and Cantino Planisphere (1502), one of the earliest surviving charts of world which showing the Trincomalee for the first time to Johannes II Van Keulen’s (1704-1755) map). Since the map of Hondius Mercator’s of 1619, Trincomalee was very primarily outlined and it was marked significantly in all later maps. Dozens of maps from varying time gaps are selected. It can see that the settlers pressed forward, the previously unmapped land appeared on the new maps. Besides this, the maps show some of the geographical changes occurred in the Trincomalee bay, e.g., possible expansion of Tambalagam area which might occur in 17th century. The maps are arranged chronologically so far as possible, as indeed are the descriptions of the cartographers. All maps are represents the illustrations of general style of each period well as the distinct style of each cartographer.

Key words: Maps, Trincomalee, Cartography, Keulen

Some of the previous studies about ceramics in Sri Lanka

Ceramics has been a vital study area in archaeology from its first periods of antiquarianism. Gradually it became a systematic study area with the development of chronological methods and classification approaches. Sir Flinders Petri and his contemporary scientist had identified the place of ceramics in subject, but the pioneers as H.C.P. Bell and his successors in Sri Lankan archaeological context were not highly concern about the value of ceramics as an artifact to reveal the past. However some other scientists in various fields of natural sciences gave their contribution to the development of the ceramic studies in both archaeological and ethnological sections. In here we like to consider about the works which done by the scientists and researchers who belonging into the both fields.

Established caste system is a major starting point for vary of study field in Sri Lanka, so do for ceramic studies. Some of the first studies about the caste were based on historical resources as Tennent (1860), and some are with the caste system in their contemporary society as Robert Knox (1681), A.C. Lawrie (1896) and A.K. Kumaraswami (1908). Knox lived intact with the castes and got to know the status of potters in Kandyan social hierarchy. Potter villages in central province and their general service bond with elites and religious places as tenants can found in Lawrie's (1896,441,476). Kumaraswami is a leading character, who distributed his wide and deep knowledge through a large span of research areas of this country. Latter Kandyan and early 20th century societal groups of potters, who known in Sinhalese as ‘badahalaya' or ‘kumbala', was in their service of feudal system by that time, hence they were become rich source to Kumaraswami. In his ‘Medieval Sinhalese arts' (1908), a vivid explanation comes about ceramics with a vernacular related utilitarian approach, including shape and size data, which still regards as one of first masterpieces of ceramic studies in Sri Lanka. In 1970s' and forth, Deborah Winslow, an American anthropologist, conducted her researches to study the world and national influences on economic change among rural pottery makers in Sri Lanka by selecting a model village called Walangama, in Kurunagala district of North Western province, which inhabits by potters who became caste and primary occupation (Winslow, 2002,155) can regard as one of the most recent study on potters caste and ceramics. Village was took by her as a part of regional system and analyzed the regional social systems of deities, marriage and weekly markets of potters (ibid, 162). Further her consideration was on economical behaviors of potters with the government interventions as from department of small industries department and new changes of it with the main political and social changes as 1977 - the open economy policy and Mahavali development projects (Winslow, 1999, 16-17). Her works cannot consider among archaeological studies, but it is the first ethnological research conducted in a long period of time (and still) about ceramics and potters in a selected region.

In the mid 20th century, P.E.P. Deraniyagala fans the fame of the path of archaeology in Sri Lanka by his school of natural scientific approach. His excavations in pre and proto historic sites as Bellanbandipalassa, Inner city of Anuradhapura, Pomparippu, etc., revealed new knowledge in to the subject. Ceramics found from the inner city was considered first time for establish a ceramic typology by analyzing their Physical and mechanical properties as paste and temper composition (ASCAR, 1957,26) however not a success due to errors in the method used for soil layer recording. An attempt to identify the vessel functions by its associating archaeological context can see from his report of Pomparippu excavation, in it he further tried to describe about shapes of ceramics by using geometric terms as ‘ovaloid without upper portion', (ibid, 19) but alike his previous ceramic studies, it was ended prematurely without a definite assessment.

Sri Lankan young scholars has exposed to new concepts of world archaeology and transmission of new knowledge with experienced foreign scholars can see from the mid of the last century and some researchers belonging to first group made an effort to find new aspect about ceramics. Gunasekara, Prematilleke and Silva (1971), identified the form of the vessels as an important factor to create a typology and based on some of current vernacular names and historical and folk sources for some extent. Classification grounded by them on ethnographic analogy of ceramic was subsequently drew some archaeologists for continue and develop it into an archaeological use in their works, as Prematilleke (1982), Ratnayake (1982); both are directors of Central Cultural Fund projects at Alahana pirivena and Jetavanaramaya respectively.

Siran Deraniyagala identified that classification of ceramic by that time in Sri Lanka is totally not found the requirements of archaeological explanations. After his short survey at Kollan Kanatta in 1971, he opt to get familiar with ceramics on ethnographic base and select Anna Shepard's (1954) methods as a systematic base. This was put in action for analyze the results of Citadel excavation of 1969, Bellan Bandi Palassa excavation of 1970 (both in 1972) and the survey done by himself with W.G. Solheim (1972) to investigate South-East Asian prehistoric presence in Sri Lanka. In all these, he suggested using the variables such as paste texture, surface luster and surface color in archaeological classification of ceramics, for the first time in Sri Lankan archaeological field and later he published a review of it (1984).

At the end of 1980s' another study was done by J. Bouzek and M. Kuna presented their results concerning the development of pottery, which were obtained during excavations at Anuradhapura Abhayagiriya. This study was focuses on the development of the vessels forms (Schenk, 2001,59). Another archaeological site based study on the ceramics excavated from ancient urban mound at Akurugoda, Tissamaharamaya was done by H. Schnek (Schenk,2001).

Most recently in the last decade another archaeological observation was took place in the Tissamaharamaya region, which was widely differing from the many of previous site base studies, distinctly inaugurated within a regional approach, in Lower Kirindi Oya basin done by Raj Somadeva and others. Pottery remains recovered from this survey and excavations are consecutively analyzed with the data recorded from ethnographic surveys of the region by R.B. Dissanayake (2005). Pottery shreds are classified along with considering its functions, functional attributes and manufacturing technologies (Dissanayake, 2005). Collaborative work of Nimal de Silva and Dissanayake (2008) sent forth the ceramic studies of Sri Lanka by preparing a catalogue of ancient pottery from Sri Lanka (Silva & Dissanayake, 2008).

All aforementioned researches can regard as the milestones of ceramic archaeological studies of Sri Lanka, but beside to these, there are many other studies done by many researchers, both professionals as same as the apprentice archaeologists, who gave their contribution to fame the path of the archaeology by going through various aspects and approaches. Archaeology is a dynamic subject, working collaborative with all other major disciplines; consequently we can create paths to dark corners of the unknown past. Since the emergence of the ceramics to the world and to Sri Lankan history, it possesses a vital value in the attempts of revealing the past, so can use efficiently in future studies.

Utilization of molluscs as a food resource among traditional communities in Kalpitiya Region (KR) of Sri Lanka.

Utilization of molluscs as a food resource among traditional communities in Kalpitiya Region (KR) of Sri Lanka.