Flintlock Gun 17th-18th century Sri Lankan This long, dramatically shaped gun is one of only five highly decorated Sinhalese long arms (bondikula thuwakkuwa) known to survive from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Measuring more than seven feet in length it features a bifurcated butt--a characteristic unique to Sinhalese guns, thought to be in use since as early as the sixteenth century--and is distinguished by its remarkable ornamentation. Pierced ivory panels, sensitively carved with scrolling foliate designs (liya vela and liya pata) that emanate from and around two central flowers (sna-mala), are inset into the stock, which itself is carved with scrolling foliate ornament (liya pata). Silver plates embossed with screwpine flowers (vetakeyiya mala) frame the lock, which is positioned on the left side of the gun, as was standard on Sinhalese firearms of the period. The two-stage barrel, with brass-inlaid transverse bands at its transition, is silver-damascened with an undula