Reconstruction of The Historical Landscape of Colombo with Archaeological References

Abstract

There are several theories as to how the name 'Colombo' came to be. During the Middle Ages, it was known as 'Kolontota' in Sinhala and 'Calenbo' by the Arabs. The Chinese explorer Chan-ta-yuan referred to Colombo as 'Kolanapu,' a hot swampy city, in the 14th century, and the Arab explorer Ibn Battuta, who visited Ceylon in the same century, described Colombo as a beautiful, large city. Researchers of the present study adopted the mixed approach to accomplish the previously explained research objective which was setting a proper reconstruction of the historical landscape of Colombo with archaeological references. The research was conducted with the support extended by the National Museum and the survey department in Sri Lanka. Researchers went through all the maps and archaeological landscape evidence mentioned in previous archaeological research like Archaeological Geophysics. The results were listed down as periodical landscape changes and how the changes happened vertically from the Colombo prehistoric era until the Kotte period, Colombo during the Portuguese period, Colombo's landscape at the conclusion of the Portuguese period, and Colombo's Dutch period.