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n expert is leading the search for the missing Fort Nassau, which was built by the Dutch East India Company in Gorontalo in colonial times. If and when found, the site will be excavated.

'€œWe are currently making efforts to update and collect data, including field observations,'€ said Romi of the Gorontalo Heritage Site Preservation Center (BPCB) recently, adding that his office planned to begin digging as soon as evidence was strong enough to suggest the location of the fortress.

The BPCB, he said, had initially found a number of photographs from the KITLV Museum in the Netherlands, one of them depicting Nassau Fort standing between two major rivers, the Bone and the Bolango, in Gorontalo city.

'€œThe photo was taken from the air. [We found it] just by browsing the KITLV website,'€ said Romi, who heads the Gorontalo BPCB registration, documentation and publication working group.

He also found another photograph showing a bomb attack by the Allied forces on the nearby Pabean Bridge; according to the photo caption, the bombing occurred in September 1944.

The photo also showed lines of Japanese barracks along the beach, he added, believed to be the spot in Gorontalo Bay where the Gorontalo City Fish Auction Harbor now stands.

Romi'€™s efforts came to fruition when he found a reproduction of the Nassau Fort in the form of a sketch, complete with a description of the fort.

While not specifying the measurements of the fort'€™s width, length and height, the sketch revealed that Fort Nassau consisted of two bastions, or small rooms, protruding out over the sea and land to monitor the fort'€™s perimeter.

The fort, which bears the same name as one in Ternate, North Maluku, consisted of bell and guard towers, an arsenal and logistics room, a kitchen, a storehouse and a dining hall.

Romi believes the fortress was leveled by Allied bombing attacks during the World War II.

'€œIt remains unclear when the bombing took place precisely. It probably took place at the same time as the bombing of the Pabean Bridge in September 1944,'€ said Romi.

The fort was built by the Dutch colonial administration. There are currently only three known fortresses in Gorontalo: the Otanaha fort complex in Dembe, Gorontalo city, and Oranye Fort and Maas Fort in North Gorontalo regency.

Based on his findings, Romi said he was convinced the Nassau Fort had stood on a spot where now stands a dormitory belonging to the Gorontalo Police headquarters in Pabean subdistrict, Gorontalo city.

Romi said he was convinced of the theory, as it was corroborated by a document he came across last year.

In a Dutch-language book entitled Travels in Gorontalo by Carl Benjamin Hermann baron von Rosenberg, a physics researcher, published in Amsterdam in 1865, Rosenberg writes that Fort Nassau was built in 1852 in the delta of the Bone and Bolango rivers, the tributary area of Gorontalo Bay.

 '€œNassau Fortress in Gorontalo remains cloaked in mystery,'€ said Romi.

What was unusual, he went on, was that its erstwhile presence was unknown by the local citizenry.

Gorontalo tourism and cultural observer Toti Lamusu said he had only recently learned of the onetime existence of the fortress, located not far from his home.

'€œIt'€™s not like other historical places. The old folk never told me stories about the fort when I was growing up,'€ said Toti.