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The Plundering of the Ceylonese Royal Treasury, 1551–1553: Its Character, Cost, and Dispersal

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Gems in the Early Modern World

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Abstract

Following the mysterious death in 1551 of Bhuvanekabāhu VII, a thorough inventory of the Ceylonese royal treasury was drafted by Simão Botelho for the Portuguese State of India (the Estado). Although published in full by Sousa Viterbo in 1904, it has received little attention from scholars. Published in its original sixteenth-century Portuguese language and teeming with long forgotten words and an exotic vocabulary of Asian origin, the inventory has remained almost unknown since it was first printed. Meticulously drafted, it contains the inventory of the monies, gold pieces, and jewels removed from the royal treasury and also the treasury of the private royal temple. The present chapter aims to provide the first systematic analysis of its invaluable art historical content.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    On this vedor, see J. Mendes de Almeida, Simão Botelho de Andrade, 6.° Vedor da Fazenda da Índia, 1504–1565 (Lisbon: Agência-Geral do Ultramar, 1969).

  2. 2.

    Francisco Marques de Sousa Viterbo, O Thesouro do Rei de Ceylão. Memoria apresentada á Academia Real das Sciencias de Lisboa (Lisboa: Por ordem e na Typograhia da Academia, 1904), 19–44.

  3. 3.

    On the gem trade in Portuguese-ruled Asia in the early modern period, see Nuno Vassallo e Silva, “The Portuguese Gem Trade in The Sixteenth Century,” Jewellery Studies 6 (1993); and Hugo Miguel Crespo, Jewels from the India Run (Lisbon: Fundação Oriente, 2015), 15–59.

  4. 4.

    Annibale Mottana, “Italian Gemology During the Renaissance: A Step Toward Modern Mineralogy,” Geological Society of America. Special Paper 411 (2006).

  5. 5.

    Luciana Stegagno Picchio, Portugal e Portugueses no livro das “Navigationi” de G. B. Ramusio (Lisboa: Instituto de Investigação Científica e Tropical, 1984).

  6. 6.

    Tomé Pires, The Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires […], vol. 2 (London: Printed for the Hakluyt Society, 1944), 516.

  7. 7.

    On this Sephardic-driven cross-cultural and long-distance gem trade, see Francesca Trivellato, The Familiarity of Strangers: The Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno, and Cross-Cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2009), 224–50.

  8. 8.

    See E. Allan Jobbins, “Sources of Gemstones in the Renaissance,” in Princely Magnificence: Court Jewels of the Renaissance, ed. A. G. Somers Cocks (London: Debrett’s Peerage Limited, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1980).

  9. 9.

    See Nuno Vassallo e Silva, “Jewels for the Great Mughal”; and João Teles e Cunha, “Hunting Riches: Goa’s Gem Trade in the Early Modern Age,” in The Portuguese, Indian Ocean and European Bridgeheads: Festschrift in Honour of Prof. K.S. Mathew, ed. Pius Malekandathil and T. Jamal Mohammed (Kannur, Lisbon: Institute for Research in Social Sciences and Humanities, Fundação Oriente, 2001).

  10. 10.

    Annemarie Jordan Gschwend, “Katharinas Kunstkammer: Luxus, Geschmack und Exklusivität,” in Elfenbeine aus Ceylon: Luxusgüter für Katharina von Habsburg (1507–1578), ed. Annemarie Jordan Gschwend and Johannes Beltz (Zurich: Museum Rietberg, 2009), 57–8.

  11. 11.

    For the impact of Portuguese rule in Ceylon, see Paul E. Pieris, Ceylon and the Portuguese, 1505–1658 (Tellippalal: American Ceylon Mission Press, 1920); Jorge Manuel Flores, Os Portugueses e o Mar de Ceilão, 1498–1543: Trato, Diplomacia e Guerra (Lisbon: Cosmos, 1998); Jorge Manuel Flores, Hum Curto Historia de Ceylan: Five Hundred Years of Relations Between Portugal and Sri Lanka (Lisbon: Fundação Oriente, 2000); Alan Strathern, Kingship and Conversion in Sixteenth-Century Sri Lanka: Portuguese Imperialism in a Buddhist Land (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007); and Zoltán Biedermann, The Portuguese in Sri Lanka and South India: Studies in the History of Diplomacy, Empire and Trade, 1500–1650 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2014).

  12. 12.

    For an overview of the Portuguese in Asia, see Sanjay Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500–1700: A Political and Economic History, 2nd ed. (Malden, Oxford, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012).

  13. 13.

    Biedermann, Portuguese, 36–41.

  14. 14.

    Strathern, Kingship, 27.

  15. 15.

    On the nature of the imperial title of cakravarti, see Biedermann, Portuguese, 37–8.

  16. 16.

    Cf. Direcção-Geral do Livro, Arquivos e Biblioteca (Lisboa), Corpo Cronológico, Parte I, Maço 41, Documento 144, fol. 3r. See Biedermann, Portuguese, 47.

  17. 17.

    On the 1542–1543 Ceylonese embassy to Lisbon, see Annemarie Jordan Gschwend, “Die Königreiche Portugal und Kotte: Diplomatie und Handel,” in Elfenbeine aus Ceylon: Luxusgüter für Katharina von Habsburg (1507–1578), ed. Annemarie Jordan Gschwend and Johannes Beltz (Zurich: Museum Rietberg, 2009); and Biedermann, Portuguese, 35–43.

  18. 18.

    Hugo Miguel Crespo, “Rock-Crystal Carving in Portuguese Asia,” in The Global City: On the Streets of Renaissance Lisbon, ed. Annemarie Jordan and K.J.P. Lowe (London: Paul Holberton publishing, 2015), 187–8.

  19. 19.

    Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, “Gold Embedding,” Spolia Zeylanica, 6.22 (1909).

  20. 20.

    Crespo, Jewels, 137–9; and Crespo, “Rock-Crystal,” 207–8.

  21. 21.

    Francis Xavier in a letter to the Portuguese king sent from Kochi, 26 January 1549, goes as far as writing that “God has a great enemy in Ceylon, in [the person] of its king [Bhuvanekabāhu VII].”—see G. Schurhammer and E. A. Voretzsch, ed., Ceylon zur Zeit des Königs Bhuvaneka Bāhu und Franz Xavers, 1539–1552, vol. 2 (Leipzig: Verlag der Asia Major, 1928), 532.

  22. 22.

    The estimate in gold weight takes into consideration that one gold cruzado weighs around 3.56 g of nearly pure gold.

  23. 23.

    Schurhammer and Voretzsch, Ceylon, vol. 2, 547–57.

  24. 24.

    Ibid., vol. 2, 554.

  25. 25.

    Ibid., vol. 2, 555.

  26. 26.

    Ibid., vol. 2, 581–602.

  27. 27.

    Ibid., vol. 2, 586.

  28. 28.

    Ibid., vol. 2, 590. Indigenous gold coins, known as pardaus in Portuguese sources, with the value of six tangas or the equivalent to 360 reais, circulated in Goa in great numbers and were minted in Vijayanagara. The Portuguese term pardau derives from the Sanskrit word pratāpa meaning “majesty, splendour,” which was struck on the coins. See Sebastião Rodolfo Dalgado, Glossário Luso-Asiático, vol. 2 (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, 1921), 175–6; and Sebastião Rodolfo Dalgado, Portuguese Vocables in Asiatic Languages, ed. Anthony Xavier Soares (Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1936), 269–71.

  29. 29.

    Schurhammer and Voretzsch, Ceylon, vol. 2, 592.

  30. 30.

    On the Ceylonese private royal temple, the Daḷadā Māligāva, see Anuradha Seneviratna, Śrī Daḷadā Māligāva. The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic. History and Architecture of the Temples (Colombo: Vijitha Yapa Publications, 2010); on its symbolic importance, see also John S. Strong, “‘The Devil was in that Little Bon’: The Portuguese Capture and Destruction of the Buddhas’s Tooth-Relic, Goa, 1561,” Past and Present 206.5 (2010).

  31. 31.

    Schurhammer and Voretzsch, Ceylon, vol. 2, 593.

  32. 32.

    Ibid., vol. 2, 593.

  33. 33.

    Ibid., vol. 2, 597.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., vol. 2, 612–3 on 613.

  35. 35.

    Viterbo, Thesouro, 19–44, on 19.

  36. 36.

    Dalgado, Glossário, vol. 2, 424–6; and Dalgado, Portuguese, 368–9.

  37. 37.

    Hubert W. Codrington, “Coins of some Kings of Hormuz,” The Numismatic Chronicle and Journal of the Royal Numismatic Society 14 (1914).

  38. 38.

    Alberto Gomes and António Miguel Trigueiros, Moedas Portuguesas na Época dos Descobrimentos, 1385–1580. Portuguese Coins in the Age of Discovery, 1385-1580 (Lisbon: Alberto Gomes, 1992), 108.

  39. 39.

    Barrie Cook, Angels & Ducats: Shakespeare’s Money & Medals (London: The British Museum Press, 2012), 59.

  40. 40.

    Gomes and Trigueiros, Moedas, 107.

  41. 41.

    Dalgado, Glossário, vol. 1, 386–7.

  42. 42.

    Ibid., vol. 1, 103; and Dalgado, Portuguese, 45.

  43. 43.

    Dalgado, Glossário, vol. 1, 183–4.

  44. 44.

    Ibid., vol. 1, 54.

  45. 45.

    Viterbo, Thesouro, 20–2. The weights recorded in this section (and throughout the inventory) are in calanjas (from the Malayalam kalaṅcha), a unit used in South India: see Dalgado, Glossário, vol. 1, 183. One calanja corresponds to 4.37 g. For the conversion, we have used evidence provided in the inventory, where one marco (229.4784 g) is said to be equivalent to 52.5 calanjas: see Viterbo, Thesouro, 34.

  46. 46.

    Viterbo, Thesouro, 23.

  47. 47.

    Ibid., 32.

  48. 48.

    Duarte Barbosa, O Livro de Duarte Barbosa, vol. 2 (Lisboa: Ministério da Ciência e da Tecnologia, Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical, Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 2000), 57. Only a partial, incomplete version of the Livro has been published in English translation (1918–21). Our own translations are based on the critical edition of the original Portuguese text (1996–2000).

  49. 49.

    Dalgado, Glossário, vol. 2, 186.

  50. 50.

    See Derek J. Content, Ruby, Sapphire & Spinel: An Archaeological, Textual and Cultural Study, vol. 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016); and Richard W. Hughes, Ruby & Sapphires. A Gemologist’s Guide (Bangkok: Lotus Publishing, 2017), 586–609.

  51. 51.

    Peter C. Zwaan, “Sri Lanka: The Gem Island,” Gems & Gemmology, 18.2 (1982); J. W. Herath, “Geology and Occurrence of Gems in Sri Lanka,” Journal of the National Science Council of Sri Lanka, 12.2 (1984); D. H., Ariyaratna, Gems of Shri Lanka (London, 1993), 23–4; and Andrew Lucas, Amil Sammoon, A. P. Jayarajah, Tao Hsu, and Pedro Padua, “Sri Lanka: Expedition to the Island of Jewels,” Gems & Gemmology, 50.3 (2014).

  52. 52.

    Mahinda Gunawardene and Mahinda S. Rupasinghe, “The Elahera Gem Field in Central Sri Lanka,” Gems & Gemmology, 22.2 (1986).

  53. 53.

    Capelam: an unidentified mountain of Burma (Myanmar), between the Shan Highlands and the Kingdom of Ava (Upper Burma), probably the famous gem-producing area known today as the Mogok Stone Tract, where the rubies purchased at Pegu (the city of Bago in Lower Burma) were said to be mined.

  54. 54.

    Barbosa, Livro, vol. 2, 285–7.

  55. 55.

    Viterbo, Thesouro, 24–5.

  56. 56.

    Dalgado, Glossário, vol. 2, 129–37; and Dalgado, Portuguese, 249–57.

  57. 57.

    Dalgado, Glossário, vol. 2, 405–6; and Dalgado, Portuguese, 362–3.

  58. 58.

    Viterbo, Thesouro, 27.

  59. 59.

    Ibid., 27–8.

  60. 60.

    See Ulrich von Schroeder, The Golden Age of Sculpture in Sri Lanka (Hong Kong: Visual Dharma Publications Lda., 1992), 50–7; and Janet Baker, ed., Guardians of the Flame: Art of Sri Lanka (Phoenix: Phoenix Art Museum, 2003), 124–5, for sixteenth-century examples.

  61. 61.

    Viterbo, Thesouro, 29.

  62. 62.

    See Schroeder, Golden, 33–49. For sixteenth-century examples, see Baker, Guardians, 120–3 and 126.

  63. 63.

    Seneviratna, Daḷadā, 101–2.

  64. 64.

    Annemarie Jordan Gschwend, “’Feito ao modo de Ceilão’: Handelsnetzwerke, diplomatische Geschenke und Heiratsallianzen,” in Elfenbeine aus Ceylon: Luxusgüter für Katharina von Habsburg (1507–1578), ed. Annemarie Jordan Gschwend and Johannes Beltz (Zurich: Museum Rietberg, 2009), 115, cat. 46.

  65. 65.

    On chrysoberyls, see H. A. Hänni, “Chrysoberyl: A Gemstone with Many Faces,” The Australian Gemmology, 24.3 (2010).

  66. 66.

    On this gem-studded harness made in the imperial city of Vijayanagara, see Crespo, Jewels, 37; Maria Augusta Lima Cruz, “Uma jóia rara na Corte portuguesa – o arreio, feito em Vijayanagar, para D. Sebastião,” in Mirabilia Asiatica. Produtos raros no comércio marítimo. Produits rares dans le commerce maritime. Seltene Waren im Seehandel, ed. Jorge M. Alves, Claude Guillot and Roderich Ptak (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2003); and Nuno Vassallo e Silva, “Filipe I e as jóias da Coroa de Portugal,” in Actas do II Colóquio Português de Ourivesaria, ed. Gonçalo Vasconcelos e Sousa (Porto: Centro de Investigação em Ciências e Tecnologias das Artes da Universidade Católica Portuguesa, 2009), 244 and 248–9.

  67. 67.

    Crespo, Jewels, 37–8.

  68. 68.

    Jacques de Coutre, The Memoirs and Memorials of Jacques de Coutre: Security, Trade and Society in 16th- and 17th-century Southeast Asia, ed. Peter Borschberg (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2014), 262–3.

  69. 69.

    Barbosa, Livro, vol. 2, 280.

  70. 70.

    Viterbo, Thesouro, 33.

  71. 71.

    Crespo, Jewels, 38.

  72. 72.

    Crespo, “Rock-Crystal”, 187–8.

  73. 73.

    British Museum, inv. OA+.14143. Described as North Indian and dated to the eighteenth century by O. M. Dalton, Franks Bequest. Catalogue of the finger rings […] (London: The British Museum, 1912), 333, cat. 2401.

  74. 74.

    Edilberto Formigli and Wolf-Dieter Heilmeyer, “Einige Faelschungen antiken Goldschmucks im 19. Jahrhundert,” Archaeologischer Anzeiger, 3 (1993); and Jack Ogden, “La riscoperta dell’arte perduta: Alessandro Castellani e la ricerca della precisione classica,” in I Castellani e l’oreficeria archeologica italiana, ed. Anna Maria Sgubini Moretti and Francesca Boitani (Roma: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2005).

  75. 75.

    British Museum, inv. AF.2355. Described as North Indian and dated to the eighteenth century by O. M. Dalton, Franks, 333, cat. 2400.

  76. 76.

    Schroeder, Golden, 42–3, cat. 8.

  77. 77.

    Crespo, “Rock-Crystal”, 194.

  78. 78.

    Ibid., 188–95.

  79. 79.

    Grünes Gewölbe, Dresden, inv. VI83u.

  80. 80.

    British Museum, inv. 18,720,604.899. Elizabeth Errington, Joe Cribb and Maggie Claringbull, ed., The Crossroads of Asia: Transformation in Image and Symbol in the Art of Ancient Afghanistan and Pakistan (Cambridge: Ancient India and Iran Trust, 1992), 149–50.

  81. 81.

    Crespo, “Rock-Crystal”, 193, fig. 188.

  82. 82.

    Viterbo, Thesouro, 33.

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  1. Centre for History, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Hugo Miguel Crespo

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  1. History Department, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

    Michael Bycroft

  2. History of Art, Science and Technology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Sven Dupré

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Crespo, H.M. (2019). The Plundering of the Ceylonese Royal Treasury, 1551–1553: Its Character, Cost, and Dispersal. In: Bycroft, M., Dupré, S. (eds) Gems in the Early Modern World. Europe's Asian Centuries. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96379-2_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96379-2_2

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-96378-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-96379-2

  • eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

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