Archaeological and Architectural Monuments Depicted on Sri Lankan Currency Notes

Abstract

Currency circulated in the world’s economic systems take the forms of coins and paper notes. Compared to the coins, paper notes lack any tangible value, but they carry the monetary value of the denoted amount on the surface of the note. Currency notes has the prominent role of keeping the flow of the liquidized money in a given state. Every state of the world print money for this purpose, but the state’s utilization of these notes goes beyond that. Currency notes are utilized as tools to communicate social, cultural, and political messages of a state. This paper aims to identify the Sri Lankan archaeological and architectural monuments depicted in currency notes and to describe reasons for depicting them on currency notes. Paper notes printed by the Central Bank on various themes up to 2018 have archaeological and architectural monuments in majority of them. In the field survey that formed the basis for this study, each currency note available at the Central Bank of Sri Lanka museum and the Matara Branch Museum were studied. Also studied literature and other sources on currency notes. Archaeologically and architecturally significant and popular monuments are one of the most portrayed pictures in currency notes in Sri Lanka, and these are incidentally also the ones that symbolizes ideas of nationhood, prosperity, and economic development in Sri Lankan culture. As past prosperity, economic development, and national pride are themes that deeply resonates with the Sri Lankan society, the use of these selected vestiges of past glory is a clear way of stimulating the people and to project the economic growth and national pride at the same time. Another motivation is recording this heritage and showcasing it so the world can see.