UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE - GALLE FORT - Photos by Radhika, Galle, Sri Lanka

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Through many centuries, the ancient southern port city of Galle, with its sheltered and well-watered harbour, has been a historic centre of Sri Lanka's contact with the world beyond its shores. Its importance lies in its strategic and central location straddling the sea lanes of the Indian Ocean. A ‘Silk road of the Sea’ hub, it was a rare meeting point of the trans-oceanic southwest and northeast monsoon systems and a gateway to a hinterland rich in tropical products and ancient crafts. The area was also endowed with the splendid artistic literary and intellectual traditions of the southern, Galle-Matara region, especially in the early modern period. One  of the most dramatic and enduring monuments of this rich and complex history is the Galle Fort, the largest and most complete walled city in Sri Lanka that still remains a living settlement. While the Fort, a World Heritage site, is a memorial to a long period of devastating foreign invasion, occupation and hegemony, it is also monument to the wealth, productivity, technology and craftsmanship of Sri Lankan society in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries and the unknown workers and master craftsmen who were its builders. The undersea earthquake, the deadliest in the history of the world, erupted at a magnitude of 9.0 in the Richter scale off the coast of northern Sumatra and triggered tsunami seismic waves that travelled across the Indian Ocean at approximately 840kmph on 26th December 2004 huge 17 feet waves hit the Galle Fort and surrounded it completely by sea water. The International Cricket Ground and main Bus Station just outside the Fort were able to bravely back off the powerful tsunami waves and protect the land within Fort.

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