Kayts Island Fort

The Kayts Island Fort is an old Portuguese fort located on the island of Kayts, Jaffna District, Sri Lanka.

History

According to the account by Rev. Philippus Baldaeus (1632-1671 A.D.), a Dutch minister who was in Jaffna during the Dutch Period of Ceylon, the fort was in a state of ruins when the Dutch conquered Jaffna in 1658 (Pearson, 1923). In the maps of Jaffna islands drawn by Baldaeus mention a fort named Oude Fort near Kayts (Pearson, 1923).

However, the villagers used to call this fort as Urindi-kotte (Pearson, 1923). According to the opinion of some, the name Uruindi-kotte may give the meaning as "the round fort" (Pearson, 1923). Penn, a visitor who wrote an account about this fort in the Colombo Journal of 8th February 1832, has mentioned this fort as the Fort Eyrie (Pearson, 1923).

Fort

The fort which is in horse-shoe shape has been built of coral stones. Presently, several remnants of the ramparts of the fort are visible at the site. Evidence is there to show that this fort had been constructed to be in alignment with the near by Hammenhiel Fort (Dias et al., 2016).

1) Kayts Island Fort by AntanO is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0