Welcome to the old Dutch gate, the last standing remains of the once famous Fort of Melaka.
Type of EarthCache: Denudation / Laterite.
The old Dutch Land Gate
The sight of the Land Gate is truly majestic and one cannot help but wonder how the rest of the fortress must have looked like. The recently reconstructed Middelburg bastion, which can be found just around the corner, provides a fair impression, although there is no way to know for sure how thick or how high the fortress walls actually were.
Excavations have been made across the Sultanate Palace, near the Land Gate, Taman Merdeka, the surroundings of the Middelburg bastion, and at the time of writing, across the St. Francis Xavier Church, giving insight to the fort’s foundations and changes made throughout the centuries.
Part of Melaka’s charm lies in the fact that it leaves ample room for visitors’ minds to fill in the blanks. It is not difficult to imagine soldiers keeping guard at the old gate, or cannons being fired to keep the enemy at bay. How awesome would it have been to be able to walk along the strong and protective walls of Melaka’s fortress in its heyday? The longer one looks at the withered gate, the more the mind tries to wonder off, attempting to recreate history with a personal touch and a pinch of salt.
The Land Gate - Old photograph, view pre-1930.
(Photo: Unknown. Source: Barnyard Dawg, private collection)
History
The iconic gate is the only surviving part of Melaka’s legendary fortress. However, most people do not realize that this gate, commonly referred to by many as Porta de Santiago or even Porta a Famosa (The famous gate), was not built by the Portuguese, but by their Dutch successors.
After a protracted siege of 5 months, the Dutch took possession of the fortress from the Portuguese on January 16th, 1641. The original gate, the actual Porta de Santiago, was too badly damaged and a new one had to be built. The gate itself clearly states it was built ‘Anno 1670’. Further evidence of its origin is provided by decorative emblems where a Dutch soldier clearly shows the initials V.O.C., the initials of the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, 1602-1799) on his shield. It appears on old maps as 'Landpoort' (Land Gate) and its construction was mentioned in the extensive report (1678) of Dutch Governor Balthazar Bort, under whose authority this gate was built.
The Land Gate - Relief on the backside of the gate.
(Source: Barnyard Dawg, 2019)
Quick Fact
In 1795 the Napoleonic War in Europe forced the Dutch to hand over control of Melaka to the British to prevent it from falling into the hands of the French. Melaka was to be returned to the Dutch after the war but the British did not favour a return of Dutch powers. Melaka did not fit with their plans to promote Penang and Singapore as new trading ports. Thus, in 1806, the governor of Penang ordered Captain William Farquhar to have Melaka’s fortress destroyed, its citizens to be relocated and the town razed to the ground. Melaka was to be erased from existance!
In 1810, Sir Stamford Raffles, founder of Singapore, happened to visit Melaka and urged authorities to stop the destruction at once. However, by the time a reply was received the fortress was almost completely demolished and only the Land Gate could be rescued. Fortunately, the town itself was spared the fate the British had in mind. Needless to say that the Dutch, upon their return on September 21st, 1818, must have been very disappointed when they found the fort destroyed.
The Land Gate - Belfry and turret.
(Source: Barnyard Dawg, 2019)
Laterite
Laterite (from the Latin word later, meaning "brick" or "tile") is a rock product that is a response to a set of physiochemical conditions, which include an iron-containing parent rock, a well-drained terrain, abundant moisture for hydrolysis during weathering, relatively high oxidation potential, and persistence of these conditions over thousands of years.1
Lateritic soils may contain clay minerals; but they tend to be silica-poor, for silica is leached out by waters passing through the soil. Typical laterite is porous and claylike. It contains the iron oxide minerals goethite, HFeO2; lepidocrocite, FeO(OH); and hematite, Fe2O3. It also contains titanium oxides and hydrated oxides of aluminum, the most common and abundant of which is gibbsite, Al2O3·3H2O. The aluminum-rich representative of laterite is bauxite. Laterite is frequently pisolitic (pealike). Exposed surfaces are blackish-brown to reddish and commonly have a slaggy, or scoriaceous, lavalike appearance. Commonly lighter in colour (red, yellow, and brown) where freshly broken, it is generally soft when freshly quarried but hardens on exposure.2
Most rocktypes can be deeply decomposed by the action of high rainfall and elevated temperatures. Percolating rainwater causes dissolution of primary rock minerals and a decrease of easily soluble elements such as sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and silicon. As a result, there remains a residual concentration of more insoluble elements—predominantly iron and aluminum.3
Laterites consist mainly of the minerals kaolinite, goethite, hematite, and gibbsite, which form in the course of weathering. Moreover, many laterites contain quartz as a relatively stable, relic mineral from the parent rock. The iron oxides goethite and hematite cause the red-brown color of laterites.4
The age of the gate is significantly younger than other famous laterite constructions. The Khmer temples in Cambodia, for example, were often constructed of laterite, but by the twelfth century, Khmer architects had become skilled and confident in the use of sandstone as the main building material. Most of the visible areas at Angkor Wat are of sandstone blocks, with laterite used for the outer wall and for hidden structural parts that have survived for over 1,000 years.5 It thus should come as no surprise that the strong, hardened varieties of laterite where and still are a convenient resource used in construction.
The Land Gate - Close-up of the laterite.
(Source: Barnyard Dawg, 2019)
Source of Melakan laterite
Ever since the reign of the Malay Sultanate of Melaka during the 14th century, laterite has been used for construction of palaces, mosques and royal tombs. The Portuguese subsequently used these as a first resource to build a keep, a tower known as Fortaleza Melaka, after capturing Melaka in 1511.
It is believed that most of the laterite found across Melaka today was sourced at Pulau Upeh, an island off Melaka's coast, and Teluk Pelandok, east of Cape Rachado. At these two places there is evidence of extensive laterite cutting with remnant rectangular cavities still to be seen on laterite bedrock. The Upeh site was worked by the Portuguese throughout their occupation of Malacca from 1511 to 1641 as mentioned in records such as Cardon (1934). The laterite cutting at Teluk Pelandok has been mentioned in Khoo (1997) and the occurrences of ceramics dating from the mid 18th century near the site suggest that possibly the Dutch worked on the site to obtain laterite blocks for structures such as the St. John Fort and repairs to the Portuguese fort existing then.
The extensive laterite cutting at these two sites had caused the sea to denude further inland. To some extent the present bay at Teluk Pelandok is not a naturally formed bay but partly caused by taking away of voluminous lateritic material. The headlands with their naturally occurring outcrops of laterite, which could not be cut, were left as small islets way out from the present coastline. The coastal geomorphology that occurred will forever be visible.6
Evidence of laterite use in Melaka
After the Fort of Melaka was demolished, laterite meterials were harvested and used by the people in construction of buildings. because of this, the age of a house in Melaka can sometimes be determined by the usage of brick-type or laterite. The use of laterite is easily spotted in the older houses of prayer, water wells, and can even be found as gravel at Bukit Cina (supposedly the largest Chinese cemetery outside China). Laterite can easily be identified at the St. Pauls Church ruin and St. John's Fort, a small Dutch outpost nearby. The iconic red buildings around Dutch Square; the church and Stadthuys, are also constructed from laterite, but the walls are mostly plastered over, however, inside the Stadthuys, now a museum, you can find the remains of a drainage system built in laterite and two wells. There are also several dig sites, where the remains of the walls from the Fort of Melaka have been unearthed, largely located between the sites of the Sultanate Palace and the St. Francis Xavier church, these dig sites somewhat follow the road around St. Paul's Hill.
It is perhaps worth mentioning that the laterite wall found alongside the eastern bank of the river (underneath the shop lots and café's) is a recent construction, as is the nearby reconstructed bastion.
How to claim this EarthCache?
Send me the following;
1. The text "GC7YAA2 The Old Dutch Land Gate" on the first line.
2. The answers to the following questions;
- Is the old Dutch gate, built from laterite, made from soil or a rock?
- Describe the appearance, texture and colour of the laterite.
- In terms of weathering, how do you see the old gate evolve?
- How many bricks are stacked in the wall, left of the gate? (Single digit)
3. Provide a photo of yourself or a personal item to prove you have visited the site.*
References
1, 2 Laterite, Editors, Encyclopædia Britannica Science, retrieved March 2019. 3, 4, 5 Laterite, New World Encyclopedia, June 2018, retreived March 2019. 6 Coastal geomorphology of the Strait of Malacca area during the past millennium, T.T. KHoo, Warta Geology (newsletter of the Geological Society of Malaysia) 1999, volume 25, No. 3, p163, adaptation. GC7YAA2 The remaining portions of this listing has been taken from: Greetings from Melaka, Walter François & Steven Timmermans, 2nd edition (2014), p83. Cache owner is one of the authors.
* Effective immediately from 10 June 2019, photo requirements are permitted on EarthCaches. This task is not optional, it is an addition to existing logging tasks! Logs that do not meet all requirements posed will no longer be accepted.
For additional information, visit; Geosociety.org, Geocaching.com Help Center and Geocaching.com Forum.
Finding the answers to an EarthCache can often be challenging, and many people tend to shy away from these caches because of this. However, it is my opinion that geocaching is also meant to be a fun family experience that simply aims to introduce interesting and unique locations such as this one. Flexibility on logging requirements, however, can only be applied if it can be established that you have actually taken the time to visit the site. For this reason, a proper log describing your adventure accompanied by a good number of photos would be much appreciated.
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