Moratuwa University to draw up conservation plan

Recently discovered Dutch bunker in Galle Fort

August 3, 2011, 10:04 pm

By Pabodha Hettige

The Archeological Department of Moratuwa University has been entrusted with the task of drawing up a conservation plan for the newly discovered Dutch bunker at the Galle Fort.

Project Planning officer of the Galle Heritage Foundation (GHF), Tharanga Liyanarachchi said that the bunker was discovered on August 1 under the clock tower of the Galle Fort. The GHF believes that the bunker had been built in the 1680’s and was used by the Dutch as a military chamber.

"Once the conservation proposal is finalized a team of archeologists from the Department of Archeology will carry out the conservation preserving all the Dutch archeological characters," Liyanarachchi said. Once conservation is comleted the GHF is planning to open the newly discovered bunker along with nine others, discovered previously, to the public in 2012. The new bunker, made out of clay plaster, limestone and coral is regarded as the biggest inside the Galle Fort and it had not been subjected to any kind of renovations during the British period, he said.

Parallel to the conservation, the GHF, along with the Road Development Authority, will be engaged in renovating 21 roads inside the Galle Dutch Fort, Liyanarachchi said.

He also said that already 40 per cent of renovation has been finished and the estimated cost for the whole project is nearly Rs. 200 million and it will be funded by the Ministry of Economic Development. "One the renovation project is completed and the archeological heritage opened to the public it will help to boost the tourism industry in Galle," Liyanarachchi said.