the digital archaeological reconstruction of the a famosa fortress, malaysia

8/7/2019 THE DIGITAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECONSTRUCTION OF THE A FAMOSA FORTRESS, MALAYSIA

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Figure 1: Remains of old Portuguese fortress in Melaka, Portade Santiago (Asia Explorers, 2003)

1.2 Motivation

Presently the Malaysian government is taking another step topreserve some of the new findings in this fortress. Theconservation team is reconstructing one of the bastions knownas the Middleburgh bastion which dates from the Dutchoccupation. Nadharaj (2003) explains, However, work touncover more of the buried wall, despite its historicalsignificance and potential to draw more tourists into the area,may not be feasible as it would involve tearing up the majorroad that links the old town with the new commercial area.Hence, only certain part of the fortress can be reconstructed.In order to solve this problem, we propose to digitallyreconstruct this fortress in form of 3D model which can benavigated in the virtual world. Since the fortress itself hasfaced several changes in its design and layout, byreconstructing it in 3D allows the researchers to investigate

and study the development of these changes from architecturaland historical aspects.

1.3 Objectives

There are several objectives for this research:1. To collect and analyse all the related documentsabout this fortress and translate into visual forms.2. To study the historical and architectural backgroundof the fortress including the functions and structures fromvarious resources.3. To reconstruct the fortress design development in3D models based on collected data from variousresources.4. To provide reliable and standard 3D models of this

fortress for architectural visualization and historicaleducation purpose.

2. ISSUES

There are several challenges encountered in developing thedigital archaeological reconstruction of the A FamosaFortress. They are as explained below:

1. The use of advanced methods such asphotogrammetry and 3D laser scanning to developthe digital model are not possible because thefortress has been badly destroyed. Physicalreconstruction of the fortress requires a very longtimescale of development and rebuilding the entire

fortress on the site is nearly impossible because thefortresss location now has been developed into abusy city.

2. It is inarguable that the lack of authoritativedocumentation is the main obstacle in this research.Most of the documents are scattered all over theworld. To trace these documents requires us tocontact related bodies in the countries that wereinvolved in the past occupation in Melaka such asPortugal, Netherlands and Britain. Additionally

these documents are very old and require translation.3. The variety of measurement systems and graphicalprojections used in the early descriptions of thefortress requires us to translate them into standardunits. Other than that we also need to compare itsold graphical projections and match with othergraphical and textual resources. Any similarity inthese findings will strongly support our rationale.

3. FINDINGS

3.1 Fortress design development

At this stage, we managed to collect several drawings and

paintings from various resources (mostly during Portugese andDutch era) that describe A Famosa in visual form. Thesedrawings have some similarities between each other. Otherthan visuals we also found some textual descriptions aboutthis fortress which are very helpful to assist and support thereconstruction process. These textual descriptions are takenfrom old letters and books. For instance, Lima, (1988) statesthat in 1588, Joao Baptista Cairato, an Italian militaryarchitect had inspected the fortress and made suggestion onalteration for military security purpose.

Based on our analysis on the collected data, we havecategorised the design development of this fortress into 4stages namely;

1. The early stage: single building with a tower

2. Extension of fortress under the Portugueseoccupation

The Dutch occupationThe British occupation

3.1.1 The early stage: single building with a tower: Inthe early Portuguese Malacca book, Thomaz et al., 2000,describes figure 2, Malacca in the first half of the 16thcentury according to a plate from Lendas da India byGaspar Correia. The walls had not yet been raised and thecentral district, as weak as the district of Upeh is protectedby a simple palisade. The Famosa fortress stands out, clearlymedieval, with its four storey keep and a single bastionfacing the sea, to place artillery. All the houses areapparently covered by a vegetal substance.

Figure 2: Fortaleza de Malacca, drawing by Gaspar Correia,1527, in his manuscript works, Lendas da India(Correa & Felner, 1975)


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There are no convents yet, only the mother church, next to thefortress, and a small chapel on the hill. The sketch isobviously, rather schematic and does not convey thedimension of the city, which should, according to both thecalculation of the Sejarah Melayu and Portuguese, numberabout 200 000 souls.

Figure 3 presented a more detailed plan of 'A Famosa' builtby Alfonso de Albuquerque in 1511. The tower called'Fortaleza' which served as residence of the captain, thecourtyard with a well, the jail (tronco) and the magazine(almazem) where guns, ammunition and navigationimplements were kept.

Figure 3: Plan of the A Famosa source Thomaz et al (2000)

3.1.2 Extension of fortress wall under the Portuguese

occupation (within 1568-1604): The actual date for thedrawing in Figure 4 is unknown but it was published bySilveira, (Silveira, 1956) and Manguin (Manguin, 1988).

Manguin came out with a proper drawing that describes thedetails in the fortress. The drawing noticeably shows thewall extension of former fortress in figure 2 (marked withblack circle). Manguin has clearly indicated some of themost important fortress elements in his reproduced drawingsuch as the number and names of the bastions, hospital,churches, fortress gates and tower bridge.

Figure 4: Anonymous Portuguese drawing of the Malaccafortress, dated 1568. The original is kept at the

Biblioteca Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Correa& Felner, 1975).

The extension of A Famosa is also supported by Thomaz et.al, 2000 which explained Figure 5 as The walled section ofMalacca in 1604 according to a sketch by Manuel Godinho deEredia. The wall is already completed, encompassing theformer fortress, with its tower, all public buildings (town hall,bishop's place, Santa Casa da Misericordia, two hospitals, the

school of the Jesuits and several churches and convents). Thewall features seven strongholds destined for artillery, both onland and sea sides (Figure 5). The sketch notes the contours ofa new outline, broader, on the land side, that was to remainonly a project. The walled section encompasses a green areaon the hillside, where the school of the Jesuits stood,accessible through three staircases.

Figure 5: Eridias drawings (1604) of the fortress of Melaka

Figure 6: Sousas drawing on Melaka, 1660s

Figure 6 shows another illustration of the extended wall of AFamosa during Portugese occupation. It is entitled Plan ofMalacca by Manuel de Faria e Sousa, Portuguese chronicler,from a work entitled "Asia Portuguese", published in Madridin the 1660's (Kennedy, 1962).


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3.1.3 The Dutch occupation: Figure 7 illustrated AFamosa during the Dutch era by Heydt which was a verydetailed drawing complete with scale and legends. This wasbetween 1735 1744. The drawing clearly shows some ofthe additional elements such as walls and bastions. Thefortress itself has a few changes particularly outside thewalls which are surrounded by the moat. It is also found that

the size of the fortress has been extended during the Dutchera as compared to during the Portuguese era.

Figure 7: The Dutch drawing, Copperplate printing of Planoder Grund Riss der Stadt u. Vest. Malacca byHelydt, Johan Wolfgang

Most of the drawing during the Dutch era is more accurate,well organised and properly described. It also includes themeasurements and elements of the fortress.

3.1.4 The British Occupation: According to the history,after Malacca fell into Britishs hand, it had long sinceceased to be of any commercial importance, and in order toavoid the expense of maintaining the fort and to prevent itfrom becoming danger if it fell again into other hands, thewalls of fort were destroyed in 1824,by William Farquhar,the British captain. As the result, the only evidence lefttoday is a gate to access the fortress which is known as Porta

de Santiago (Figure 1).3.2 Comparison of drawings

As we can see from the collected drawings, it is difficult tomake a direct comparison from one source to another since thedrawing is based on different perspective and era. This isbecause the development of this fortress itself can be dividedinto four stages as discussed previously and most of thedrawings during Portuguese era were not properly labelled anddid not include any measurement.As one of our preliminary solution to solve the aboveproblem, we tried to map each of the different illustrationsinto one common perspective. For an initial comparison, wehave chosen the Dutch drawing as our main plan and project it

onto several Portuguese perspective drawings as shown inFigure 4. The observations have highlighted some differences

in size and shape of the fortress between the two eras. Furtherstudy is needed to identify more detail information.

(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 8: Projection of the Dutch era of Malacca fort ontoPortuguese drawings: a) the outline of Figure 7, b)Projection of (a) to Figure 4, c) Projection of (a) toFigure 5 and d) Projection of (a) to Figure 6.

3.3 Fortress elements

The major fortress elements are walls and bastions. Eachbastion has its name, based on our findings the name for each

bastion also being changed when the Dutch captured Melakafrom the Portuguese. According to the Malacca CentenaryCommittee the names of the bastions are as below:


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Dutch names Portuguese names

Fredrick Hendrick CourassaMiddleburghErnestus Casimir Hospital de PovneAmsterdam St. DomingoVictoria St. Domingo

Emelia Madre DeosHenriette Louijse Ongie Mille virginesWilhelmus St. LagoMauritius Hospital del Rey

Table 2: Bastions in the old fort (Malacca CentenaryCommittee)

3.4 Fortress measurement

As discussed earlier, it is difficult to get accuratemeasurements for the fortress especially during thePortuguese era since it is not drawn up to scale and hardlyinclude any measurement or label. Further more, according to

Eredia (1997), A Famosa had the shape of a pentagon and itsperimeter was 655 fathoms which is equal to 1.441 km.However, the correct metric conversion of 1 fathom is equalto 1.8288, this means 655 fathoms is equal to 1.198 km. Thisis another example of problems in assembling accurate datafor reconstruction.

Based on our research on various sources, we have come outwith a rough measurement of the fortress wall during theDutch era as presented in Figure 9. We have also done somecalculations to prove that the wall measurements and the angleconnecting the wall, is consistent and correct using the law ofsine and the law of cosines.

Figure 9: Measurement of the fortress wall during Dutch era.

4. FUTURE WORK

Presently we are still collecting as much information aspossible about this fortress. Since the remains of the fortressare very small, the only method of reconstruction is traditional3D polygonal modelling. The use of advanced methods suchas photogrammetry and 3D laser scanning are not practicaldue to these methods requiring physical objects to bemeasured. We propose that the process of the 3D modellingwill commence once the data is fully obtained and the major

arguments are answered. Theoretically all of the informationfrom the drawings and textual descriptions will be translated

into visual form. This will assist the researchers if anyconfusion in 3D modelling process happens. The 3D modelswill be modelled in 3DS Max and the process of retracing theplans will be done in Auto CAD.

5. CONCLUSIONS

In our attempt to reconstruct this fortress into digital formatwe found that it is not possible to come out with one fixed andpermanent design. This is because the studies have proven thatA Famosa has gone through different modifications andphysical reconstruction. Historically this fortress has changedhand from the Portuguese to the Dutch and finally to theBritish. Hence, the 3D models that we proposed are to bebased on the identified development of this fortress design.Presently we have not decided about the actual 3D models tobe developed until we finalised our data collection.

Another important challenge is that the early evidence such asperspective drawings and plans are not to scale, have incorrectperspective points and no proper measurements. In order to

reconstruct these 3D models, we need to analyse the collecteddata supported by the textual descriptions from old letters,journals and books. These facts must match and support eachother.

REFERENCES

Asia Explorers., 2003. Article on Exploring the Porta deSantiago (A Famosa) Remains of old Portuguese fort,Malacca, Malaysia. http://www.asiaexplorers.com/malaysia/ porta_de_ santiago.htm (accessed 02 Jun. 2008)

Bocarro, A. (1991). O livro das plantas de todas as fortalezas,cidades e povoacoes do estado da India Oriental. Lisboa:

Imprensa Nacional.

Corre a, G., & Felner, R. J. d. L. (1975). Lendas da India.Tesouros da literatura e da historia. Porto: Lello & Irmao.

Elias, P., 1780, Map of the city and fort at Malaccahttp://www.nationaalarchief.nl/amh/detail.aspx?page=dafb&lang=en&id=2165#tab0 (accessed 1 Jun. 2007)

Godinho de Eredia, M., & Mills, J. V. (1997). Eredia'sdescription of Malaca, Meridional India, and Cathay . KualaLumpur, Malaysia: Malaysian Branch of the Royal AsiaticSociety.

Heydt, Johann Wolfgang, 1735 - 1744, Map of Malakka,

http://www.nationaalarchief.nl/ amh/detail.aspx? page= dafb&lang =en&id=5560 (accessed 17 Jul. 2007)

Iria, A. 1960-6 I.' Elementos de estudo acerca da possivelcontribu~iop ortuguesa para a organiza~io do MuseuHist6rico de Malaca', Studia, V-VII: 47-120, VIII:'07-333.

Kennedy, J. (1962). A history of Malaya, A.D. 1400-1959.[New York], St. Martin's Press

Malacca Centenary Committee. (1936). Historical guide ofMalacca. [Malacca]: Malacca Historical Society.

Leupe, P. A., & Hacobian, M. (1936). The siege and captureof Malacca from the Portuguese in 1640-1641: extracts from

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Manguin Pierre-Yves, (1988). Of Fortresses and Galleys The1568 Acehnese Siege of Melaka, after a Contemporary Bird's-Eye View, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3, SpecialIssue: Asian Studies in Honour of Professor Charles Boxer,pp. 607-628

Noonan, L. A. (1989). John of Empoli and his relations with

Afonso de Albuquerque. Lisboa: Ministerio da Educac ao,Instituto de Investigac ao Cientifica Tropical.

Pires, T., & Rodrigues, F. (1944). The Suma oriental of TomePires, an account of the East, from the Red Sea to Japan,written in Malacca and India in 1512-1515, and The book ofFrancisco Rodrigues, rutter of a voyage in the Red Sea,nautical rules, almanack and maps, written and drawn in theEast before 1515. London: The Hakluyt Society.

Ryan, N. J. (1960). Malaya through four centuries ananthology, 1500-1900. London, Oxf. Univ. Press, pp. 6

Silveira, L. 1956. Ensaio de iconograja dascidadesportuguesas do Ultramar, Lisboa, 4 vols.

Thomaz, Luis Filipe F. R., and Manuel Pintado. 2000. EarlyPortuguese Malacca. [Macau]: CTMCDP/IPM, pp. 19.

Vanitha Nadharaj , Article on The Star Sunday July 27, 2003,New interest in an old fort, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysiahttp://allmalaysia.info/ news/story.asp?file= 2003/7/27/state/5811969&sec= mi_malacca (accessed 6 Jun. 2007)

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the digital archaeological reconstruction of the a famosa fortress, malaysia

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