onclick on image to see
archive.org 1999 coin web-page.
Now focused mainly on Numismatics and cross-linked to its online History, lakdiva.org.lk has become the standard Numismatic Reference world wide on Ceylon and Sri Lanka, from ancient Lankan Coins since about 300 BCE (coins.lakdiva.org.lk), to Modern Ceylon/Sri Lanka Currency notes from their origin in 1785 CE (notes.lakdiva.org.lk).
Although started centered on a personal numismatic collection, it now strives to be complete using high resolution images both collector contributed and with permission from Auction Catalogs. The BankNote website spanning 240 years is now practically complete with all known information and the lot larger Coin website spanning over 2300 years is probably 90% and progressing towards completion on the long term.
|
|
| onmouseover to expand. onclick on image to see archive.org 1999 coin web-page. |
Coin images from the website were used to illustrate 2022 lk-domain calendar, in the Coin Gallery panels of the Colombo National Museum, Anuradhapura Archaeology Department Museum, the Bank of Ceylon Museum, and many other publications both in Lanka and abroad.
lakdiva.org has over 70 different Backlinks indexed in Google has over 350 back reference links mostly on Lankan coins in Wikipedia. It has a Public facebook group
The coin website has had over 35,000 unique vistors from over 125 countries over the last 7.5 years. i.e. about 90 per week. Although primarily in English to have maximum International reach, it has used both සිංහල and தமிழ் in unicode within the descriptions of the Coins and Banknotes of Lanka that include text in local languages.
The website was started as pure HTML without using any Content Management System (CMS) interface. CMS hardly existed in 1998. The website is on a shared Linux server with SSH access, using Emacs to edit, grep, sed & awk for bulk transformations and finally checked with Linklint. It has remained that way to ensure that the page source will be readable and can be easily edited without any CMS. Website uses just a few simple JavaScript to expand onmouseover and flip images onclick. See image on page. HTML formatting uses only about 10% of the page source which keeps it readable for editing. In contrast webpages managed with a CMS, the content is often lost in the formatting, maybe deliberately to trap your dependence on that CMS, the popular one of which keeps changing every 5 to 10 years.
Looking for the oldest reference to my coin web site. I found this letter I sent to CBSL in 1998 May, seeking clarifications, as I now do often with RTI. I had then just started the coin website. CBSL did reply sending me a FAX to USA with the requested information as CBSL was then still not online.
The oldest home page saved in archive.org is dated 1998 December 5th and links to coin website page in archive.org which is dated 1999 February 21st.