Seri Rambai

About

The Seri Rambai is a seventeenth-century Dutch cannon displayed at Fort Cornwallis in George Town, the capital city of the Malaysian state of Penang and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is the largest bronze gun in Malaysia, a fertility symbol and the subject of legends and prophecy.

The cannon's history in the Malacca Straits began in the early 1600s, when Dutch East India Company officers gave it to the Sultan of Johor in return for trading concessions. In 1613, the Sultanate of Aceh attacked and destroyed Johor, captured the sultan, and took Seri Rambai to Aceh. Near the end of the eighteenth century the cannon was sent by Aceh to Selangor and mounted next to one of the town's hilltop forts. In 1871, the British colonial government launched an attack on the town in retaliation to a pirate attack, destroying the forts and confiscating the Seri Rambai.