Fua Mulaku Havitta

Fua Mulaku Havitta (historically referred as Dhadimagi Havitta) is an ancient ruin of a Buddhist chaitya whose main feature is a ruined stupa[1]. The Havitta is located at the northern end of Fuvahmulah, Maldives in the area of the historical boundaries of Dhadimago ward of the island. Starting from the late 1980-1990s, the area is claimed by Hoadhado ward. Today, its actual shape has been lost because of the damage done by careless diggings to find valuable artifacts or for bungled research purposes[2]. The ruin is about 40 feet in height and it looks like a small hill. A smaller mound, about 15 feet in height, is located near the Havitta.

Explorers

In 1922 H. C. P. Bell,[3] who had already visited the Maldives in 1879 and 1920 returned to the islands for a last time with the specific objective of establishing, once for all, whether Buddhism had indeed been the faith of the islanders before their conversion to Islam in ca. 1153 A.D. In February 1922, he travelled to Fuvahmulah and briefly examined the remains of the Havitta. Bell's extensive report on the 1922 excavations, published posthumously in 1940, links the pre-Islamic Buddhist structures of the Maldives such as the Havitta with those of neighboring Sri Lanka. It was the Havitta, for which Bell was much struck by the close resemblance between it and the dagabas he had previously seen at Anuradhapura. Bell's expeditions remain to be the only professional archaeological excavations ever conducted in the Maldivian Archipelago. As a part of these excavations Bell travelled to some other islands too.[4]

Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl also visited the Havitta in the 1980s.

References

  1. ^ Xavier Romero-Frias, The Maldive Islanders, A Study of the Popular Culture of an Ancient Ocean Kingdom
  2. ^ Xavier Romero-Frias, The Maldive Islanders, A Study of the Popular Culture of an Ancient Ocean Kingdom
  3. ^ H.C.P Bell, The Maldive Islands - Monograph on the History, Archaeology and Epigraphy. Colombo 1940, ISBN 99915 3 051 7
  4. ^ [1]