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Thiruketheeswaram Old Survey Tower |
Thiruketheeswaram Old Survey Tower (Sinhala: තිරුකෙතීශ්වරම් පැරණි මිනුම් කුළුණ) is a colonial-era survey tower located on the wayside of Thiruketheeswaram Kovil Road near Paalavi Tank in the Ancient Mahatittha Port Site in Mannar District, Sri Lanka.
History
The Department of Survey of Sri Lanka (or the Department of the Surveyor General) is considered the oldest unchanged government department in the country. It was established by the British on 2 August 1800 (Vithana, 2006). Under the Surveyor General W. D. Gosset (1855-1858), the establishment of control for surveys on the island commenced with the base measurements in 1857 for Principal Triangulation and several survey towers were used across the country for this process (Dias et al., 2016).
The tower presently standing near the Paalavi Tank is believed to be one of the towers used by the British for surveying purposes.
The Tower
The square-shaped tower, made of coral and bricks, is about 8 m in height (Asanga & Nishantha, 2018). It has four representative stories and they get smaller as the tower rises from the bottom to the top but the fourth floor is taller than the second and third floors. The side length of the lowest floor is 2.3 m and the height is 2.4 m (Asanga & Nishantha, 2018).
At the bottom, an arch-shaped passage of about 70 cm in height can be seen (Asanga & Nishantha, 2018). Inside it, a square vertical opening runs to the top through the tower from the centre point of the arch (Asanga & Nishantha, 2018). On the top of the tower is a platform for surveyors to take measurements.
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References
Books, Journal Articles
1) Asanga, M. V. G. K.; Nishantha, I. P. S., 2018. Mannarama Distrikkaya (In Sinhala). Department of Archaeology (Sri Lanka). ISBN: 978-955-7457-10-9. p.97.
2) Dias, M.; Koralage, S.B.; Asanga, K., 2016. The archaeological heritage of Jaffna peninsula. Department of Archaeology. Colombo. p.226.
3) Vithana, P. K., 2006. Surveying and mapping in Sri Lanka. Seventeenth United Nations Regional Cartographic Conference for Asia and the Pacific Bangkok. pp.1-9.
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Attribution
To Whom
Survey tower, Thirukedishwaran by Jagath Abesekara is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
