Last fortnight, a team of amateur archaeologists led by CHF Vice President and veteran archaeologist, Sri K K Muhammed stumbled on a valuable piece of evidence which may be one more piece in the jigsaw puzzle that is Calicut’s history. It was a huge granite piece of the gate of a structure presumed to be of the Zamorin’s fort.
It was recovered from the premises of a restaurant (1980s: A Nostalgic Restaurant) on the Dawood Bhai Kapasi Road, close to the beach. We are grateful to them for preserving the most nostalgic item – the stone structure of the Fort which goes back more than 500 years before 1980!
According to Sri. Muhammed, this could be a part of the western gate of the Zamorin’s fort during the period 1400-1500 AD. If so, this was probably the gate through which Vasco da Gama and his entourage entered the palace. This could well have been the palace which his successors Cabral and Albuquerque had blasted with cannons from the sea.