HISTORY HOUR XAVIER CENTRE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH Cordially invites you to a talk and discussion on
Mapping the Defensive System of the Northern Province of the Estado da India - new research results by Arch. Sidh Mendiratta Xavier Centre of Historical Research Alto Porvorim Friday, 12th February 2010 5. 30 pm Tel: 2417772 ; 2414971 [email protected] Synopsis: Comprising about 800 villages and four large towns, the Northern Province was a rural territory along the Northwestern coast of India dependent on the Portuguese empire between 1534 and 1739. During the 200 years of its existence, the colonial territory was densely fortified by the Portuguese. The bigger fortifications of Vasai, Chaul and Daman have been fairly well studied; however, the complex network of smaller structures - forts, bastions, isolated towers, fortified manor houses, fortified convents, etc - remains to be surveyed, mapped and researched. In this presentation, we will attempt to present for the first time the defensive framework of the whole Northern Province, relating it to the territory's other networks: religious structures, population settlements, communications infrastructures, etc. Arch Sidh Mendiratta graduated from the Architecture Faculty of Porto in 2005, after having studied in Coimbra for three years and in the Goa College of Architecture for one year. His final degree work was a study of the Augustinian convent at Old Goa, during which he undertook a collaborative work with the Archaeological Survey of India (2003-2004), and partially sponsored by Fundação Oriente. In 2006, he joined the team of the research project "Bombay Before the British", funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Lisbon, and coordinated by Professors Walter Rossa and Paulo Varela Gomes. The main objective of this project, whose first phase ended in 2007, was to create an interactive GIS map of Indo-Portuguese layer of the territory of Greater Mumbai. In 2007, Arch Mendiratta started his Ph.D. research with the topic "Architectural and Engineering structures of the defensive system of the Northern Province of the Estado da Índia (1520-1740)", based at the Architecture Nucleus of the Centre for Social Studies, Coimbra University. He has recently undertaken a one-month long surveying tour through the erstwhile Northern Province territory, documenting, with a topography team, the most important un-surveyed ruins of Portuguese fortifications.
