Tsunami: Affected Archaeological Heritage Sites in the Western Province,Sri Lanka

Abstract

Sri Lanka’s archaeological heritage goes back from the Historical period right back to the Protohistoric and Prehistoric periods (Deraniyagala, 1996, Silva, 1990). This archaeological heritage includes a variety of outstanding monuments, buildings and sites. Significantly, some of them are now declared as World Heritage sites. It is evident that Tsunami has devastated much of the coastal belt in Sri Lanka that hit and destroyed the people lives and their property. More than 30,000 people have been killed and nearly 900,000 have been made homeless. The UNESCO World heritage site of Galle was not seriously affected. However, the Maritime archaeological museum located within this environment has been subjected to some damage due to flooding in the area. It is almost certain that some of the cultural heritage sites and the cultural landscape of the costal belt has also been greatly damaged or destroyed. The damage is extensive and the sites need to be conserved within the framework of archaeological principles. This paper is intended to discuss the damage to the cultural heritage in the Colombo, Gampaha and Kalutara districts of the Western Province of Sri Lanka. We have identified twenty eight sites which have been affected by the tsunami disaster in these three districts (Gunawardhana and Katugampola, 2005). In this paper, we will also describe the scale of the damages to the archeological heritage sites in the Western Province.