The calls came on Monday not only from within the country but also from outside.“The sheath of the sword is like a wooden bastama (walking stick) with a round handle like in an umbrella. It is about four feet long and is reddish in colour. Inside this bastama you get the metal kinissa,” said Vasantha Ranasinghe explaining what the sword referred to in the story, ‘Disappearing act of museum artefact’ (PLUS, July 12) looked like.
This bastama is the cover for the kinissa and no one would imagine there is a sword inside. However, in an emergency you can take the kinissa from inside the bastama, said Vasantha confirming that the sword was part of a collection his father, Douglas Ranasinghe, had donated to the E.W. Perera Museum in Kotte in 1992.
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| The sword that was on the Road Show (above) and (below) the intricate work on its handle. |
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The sword has gone missing after it was taken to an exhibition in Seethavaka and the matter was raised in Parliament by JVP MP Lakshman Nipunaarachchi.
“My father was a collector of antiques and the house was full of such items. He was appointed a Curator for archaeological sites in Kotte and his large collection included coins, gems, jackets and many other items found from the Kotte area,” he said, adding that among this collection were some clothes and the suitcase of E.W. Perera as well. As he had a large collection of antiques he had proposed a museum and that was how the E.W. Perera Museum came about.
His father had also designed a map of Kotte demarcating all the archaeological sites in this area of historical importance. He had written many books including the Lion of Kotte (a book on E.W. Perera), Kotte That Was; Welikada Viththi etc. which were all donated to the museum by the family after Douglas Ranasinghe’s death.
Expressing concern about the lost item, Vasantha said that no one should say that any museum piece is not very valuable.
Meanwhile, a Sri Lankan living in America, P. Rajapaksa, contacted the Sunday Times and said that some months ago he saw a Sri Lankan sword being featured on a programme called Antique Road Show on www.pbs.org.
“This sword which was auctioned on the Road Show could be the same sword that was stated in your article,” he said, sending photographs of the sword.
However, when the pictures were shown to Vasantha he said it was not the sword that his father donated to the museum.
While the whereabouts of the valuable sword, believed to be that of a Nilame, who was a close associate of Veediye Bandara, are still unknown and the Criminal Investigations Department is attempting to trace, one wonders how another Sri Lankan sword got on the ‘Antique Road Show’. |
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