A conservation initiative of a 500-year-old church at Venduruthy, which dates back to the Portuguese arrival in Kochi, is nearing completion.
Around 70% of the PAMA project to support the conservation and documentation of the St. Peter and Paul Church is over, said researcher-cum-conservator Satyajith Ibn. PAMA is an institute for advancement of transdisciplinary sciences.
It all began when Father Alphonse, vicar of the church, noticed relics and architectural remains in pits and floor below the sanctuary during a renovation work under the guidance of heritage sensitive architect Leo Francis. Father Alphonse carefully collected them and sought the help of PAMA to identify the artefacts and other items and document them for future generations.
A team comprising former Director of Kerala Council for Historical Research P.J. Cherian, who is also director of PAMA; geologist Linto Alappat, Satyajith Ibn, Sidhartha Saha, Miriam Collins, and Amrutha Solly cleaned, identified, and documented the finds and started contextualising them.
The lowest level of the relics and pits below the sanctuary brought out interesting evidence of the origins of the pre-1599 context and three architectural phases of post-1599 church context. They comprised pottery shreds, including Chinese wares and various types medieval roofing tiles popularly known as ‘koorayodu’.
The project is now entering its final stage of research, conservation, and in-situ display of the structural features.
“Most of the finds were near the altar. Efforts are under way to enable visitors to view them, while not in any way disturbing them. We will also restore the floor, which was earlier made of a lime mixture, as part of preventive conservation that is under way,” Mr. Ibn said.
An important feature is a post hole identified by Father Alphonse, which inspired him to think of the humble pre-modern beginnings of a “sacred” space before the formally known date of the establishment of the church in 1599.
Interestingly, the three phases discerned from the geological, archaeological and architectural features tally with the oral traditions and limited documents available on the church.
Accordingly, the first phase of the church built by the native Christian community (date unknown) is said to have become a formal church in 1599, during the Portuguese era. The third phase begins in 1788 when the present church was built by Luka Padri and Mikhael Kapithan.
The researchers are also making efforts to locate reliable documentary evidence to understand the phases more clearly from archival sources inside and outside the country, Father Alphonse said.
Mr. Ibn had evolved a plan to commence the conservation and restoration work within a fortnight after cleaning and finalising the dimensions of the features, for a glassed display of the six locales. Discussions on procuring ‘nanorestore’, which is nano particulate calcium hydroxide, will help in the advanced scientific conservation of the opened-up areas originally for renovation purposes. “Nanolime can move into the inner pores of the current plaster and form calcium carbonate within it, thereby creating a homogeneous network inside to consolidate it and concurrently facilitate moisture and air permeability for the plaster,” Mr. Ibn said.
The researcher/conservation team is on the lookout to recruit students inclined to architectural conservation. Write to pamatatas@gmail.com or call 884-8566748, 94962 76136 for details.
