Abstract

The currency note is a piece of paper uses for officially maintain a flow of funds according to the financial principles of a country. Every state in the world prints currency notes and they include artistic designs as symbols of richness and power of the country. This article focuses on the currency notes in Sri Lanka while assessing archaeological heritage and traditional decorations depicted on them. This paper further aims to highlight the Sri Lankan archaeological heritage and traditional decorations depicted in connection with the categories of currency notes established by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, and to describe reasons for depicting them on currency notes. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka issued eleven series of currency notes as of 2018 under different themes to illustrate Sri Lankan archaeological heritage. This study is based on a field survey that facilitated to obtain data and information. The currency notes available at the museum in the Central Bank of Sri Lanka were inspected, and each kind of currency notes printed from 1948 to the end of 2018 were studied. Published literature were critically reviewed. In addition, discussions with experts from the Central Bank and Bank Museum in Sri Lanka were undertaken. The use of features related to archaeological heritage and the use of traditional decorations on the notes can be considered as a prominent theme of Sri Lankan paper-currency-notes. Main reasons behind this choice coincide with the idea of representing the native heritage-identity, but not just as a medium of value exchange.

Keywords: Archaeological Heritage, Currency notes, Notes series, Traditional decorations