The northwest edge of Sri Lanka has referred to as kudiramalai. It is a cape. This Kudiramalai point and surrounding is a fascinating place to explore that consist of unique terrain with red colour soil. Though it is a breathtaking place to explore its historical and legendary significance is also phenomenal.

Kudiramalai 

Kudiramalai was a famous ancient Port City with a natural harbour that opens into the Gulf of Mannar where was renowned for Pearl banking. At present, it was located inside the Wilpattu national park. That can easily be reached from the Eluwankulama park entrance through Puttalam – Marichchakatti – Thallady (B379 & B403) road that goes through the Wilpattu national park.

Kudiramalai cape is a high cliff consisting of two strata of tertiary sandstone in the upper layer. It is overlaid with littoral sands creating some dunes with rich alluvial earth that sprung up from the ground.  These jutted out piles of soft texture clay in dark red colour have glittered from the sunlight and creating a spectacular view. Towards the land, the rock changes to a complex conglomerate of super-crystal rocks, including crystalline limestone and granitic gneiss jutting out from the earth, with a few bushes growing among them. This rocky structure’s top surface is bluish-grey in colour and the lower surface is in dark red colour. 

Ferrous & Ferric

Hence this area of the country has not been heavily affected by either monsoon of southwest or northeast, this type of bedrock formation is more favoured. Due to the chemical weathering and Aeolian, this bedrock formation occurred continuously. The gravels of this area is being rich in Iron with its’ two forms of Ferrous and Ferric. The ferrous ions are deep red colour and they won’t oxidize. Therefore, the soil is dark red colour. The ferric ions are oxidized and given a bluish-grey colour.

Mahavamsa

The Aryan Prince Vijaya from Madura of India with his 700 followers sails on the sea and see a mountain in the land and landed close to it and rested on the shore. They observed that their hands were getting reddish due to the colour of the sand on the shore. Thus they named the land “Tambapanni”, the land with the reddish sand.

The great Sri Lankan Chronicle “Mahavamsa” referred that Price Vijaya settle-down at the Tambapanni and has become the founder of the “Sinhala Race”. The remains of the settlements of the local people before the Vijaya’s arrival can be seen at “Kalivillu” near Kudiramalai.

Pomparippu

The archaeological evidence confirms that the kudiramalai area had been populated from the Mesolithic period. “Pomparippu” was one such site near Kudiramalai where a burial ground covered about 3-4 acres of land. The eminent archaeologists of Dr Siran Deraniyagala and Prof. Vimala Begley have done the excavations on this site. According to the findings of Prof. Vimala Begley, the site may contain about 8,000 burials containing the remains of 10,000-12,000 people where habitational remains must be within a short distance. The analysis done in 2002 on The burial remains in Pomparippu was analyzed and compared with Indian colleagues, confirmed that Pomparippu humans were more similar with Sinhalese and to Indian Mesolithic populations than to Balangoda man or Sri Lankan Tamils. That is confirmed the arrival of Aryan Prince Vijaya and the beginning of the “Sinhala race” stated in Chronicle “Mahavamsa”. The pomparippu Urn burial site has located off the 21st milestone of the Puttalam – Marichchakatti – Thallady road.

According to the opinion of French Biblical scholar Samuel Bochart, during King Soloman’s period (970-931 BC), the port called “Tarshish” which was traded Gold, Pearl, Ivory, and Peacocks referred to in the Old Testament of the Bible is Kudiramalai. During the period of Roman Emperor Claudius (41-54 AD), the Kudiramalai harbour was called “Hipporus” which was recorded by the Roman historian Pliny.

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