Michael Roberts, presenting an article published in 2005 as a pamphlet by the ICES, Colombo with this title “The First Settlers and Their Claim to Ownership of Terrain/State. A Comparative Excursion” … an essay originally presented in Abdul Rahman Embong, Rethinking Ethnicity and Nation Building: Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Fiji in Comparative Perspective, Panbrit UKM, Bangi, Malaysia, (c. 2003) which was then reprinted as a booklet by ICES, Colombo in 2005 – see ISBN 955-580-099-5 I.
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Soutik Biswas in BBC.com, 27 February 2025 … where the title reads “Did Iron Age ‘begin’ in India? Tamil Nadu dig sparks debate”
For over 20 years, archaeologists in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu have been unearthing clues to the region’s ancient past. Their digs have uncovered early scripts that rewrite literacy timelines, mapped maritime trade routes connecting India to the world and revealed advanced urban settlements – reinforcing the state’s role as a cradle of early civilisation and global commerce.
An aerial view of Iron Age graves in Mayiladumparai in Tamil Nadu
Somasundaram Skandakumar
He never lived that down
M. W. Amarasiri De Silva: “Do name changes to “acaste” names by the Sinhalese indicate a diminishing significance of caste?”
ABSTRACT of article pubd in in Cultural Dynamics, 2018, Vol. 30(4), pp. 303–325 ………………………………….. sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav httpDs:/O/dIo: i1.o0r.g1/1107.171/0779/201932173470410918982299660055
In modern Sri Lankan society, caste has become less significant as a marker of social identity and exclusion than was the case in the past. While acknowledging this trend across South Asian societies, the literature does not adequately explain why this is happening. Increasing urbanization, the growing number of inter-caste marriages, the expanding middle class, and the bulging youth population have all been suggested as contributory factors. In rural Sri Lanka, family names are used as identifiers of family and kinship groups within each caste. The people belonging to the “low castes” identified with derogatory village and family names are socially marginalized and stigmatized. Social segregation, marked with family names and traditional caste occupations, makes it difficult for the low-caste people to move up in the class ladder, and socialize in the public sphere. Political and economic development programs helped to improve the living conditions and facilities in low-caste villages, but the lowness of such castes continued to linger in the social fabric. Socially oppressed low-caste youth in rural villages moved to cities and the urban outskirts, found non-caste employment, and changed their names to acaste names. By analyzing newspaper notifications and selected ethnographic material, this article shows how name changes among the Sinhalese have facilitated individualization and socialization by people who change their names to acaste names and seek freedom to choose their own employment, residence, marriage partners, and involvement in activities of wider society—a form of assimilation, in the context of growing urbanization and modernization.
Keywords: acaste; individualization; low caste; name change; rural change; urbanization
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Dodwell-Keyt to Victor Melder, mid-November 2024
The series of videos will showcase Sri Lankan culture and way of life. A few scripts have already been written, though I plan to revise and refine them further. The series will follow the journey of a young Sri Lankan girl, portrayed by the talented actress Nimmi Harasgama, whose website you can visit here: ………………..
https://www.nimmiharasgama.com/home-1.html
Continue reading
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Premila Thurairatnam, whose article in The CEYLANKAN May 2024 Issue is entitled ”Ceylon Ivory”
In Ceylon, ivory was used in carving as early as the 2nd century CE or earlier1. Descriptions of Lanka in the epic Ramayana refer to ivory-embellished chariots and ivory panels. By the 15th century, ivory carving had become important enough to result in placing ivory workers fairly high on the social scale, just below the farmers and ivory was the second largest export next to cinnamon. The carving was performed with a high degree of skill using simple tools like saws, chisels and rasps to produce ivory knife handles, combs, bangles, boxes, book covers, compasses and architectural elements, such as ornamentation around door frames. Use of ivory in religious images was unique to Ceylon since being an animal substance, other cultures regarded it as inappropriate or simply too difficult to obtain1. Even today, it is common practice to place mounted elephant tusks on each side of temple doorways and ivory confiscated from poachers or from elephants that die is donated to temples.
Ceylon Ivory 
Fig 1. Fan. Kotte 1540-55. Ivory, rubies and gold on wool, 57cm high ….. Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde, Munich; exh. Museum Rietberg, Zürich6.
Casket 1 – Kunsthistorishces Museum, Vienna
Fig 2 (Casket 1). Kotte before 1542. 14.9 x 25 x 16cm. Handle and feet contemporary Indo-Portuguese, the lock-plate probably South German, mid-16th century silver mounts. Kunsthistorishces Museum, Vienna7.
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David Colin-Thome in 2008 …………………………………………………………….. https://www.historyofceylontea.com/ceylon-publications/feature-articles/the-darrawella-club-memorabilia-and-photograph-collection.html .… with highlighting emphasis imposed by The eDitor, Thuppahi
The Darrawella Club has the finest collection of memorabilia of all planters’ clubs in the country, dating back to 1870, which features the participants in the first cricket encounter between Darrawella Club and Radella Club. These two clubs have not only had a long history of sporting rivalry, but they were also the most prominent sporting planters’ clubs at national competition level in Sri Lanka.
Fig 1 = the digitised photographs lined up for replacing in their frames
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Hallo to Those Attached to “CEYLONIANA” and Valuable Lankan Artefacts & Books
…………… Way back I took steps to catalogue and transport my Oral History tapes and other valuable material to Sri Lanka with the assistance of Jitto Arulampalam in Melbourne, several Adelaidians and VERITE RESEARCH in Colombo (a prolonged and massive set of operations). That stock in now available to the public at the National Library Services Board in Torrington Avenue, Colombo.[1]
Now: as my wife and I age and enter the last phase of our lives, we face the issue of the stock in my study. This includes:
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thuppahi
