Seri Rambai, Bronze cannon at Fort Cornwallis, George Town, Malaysia

Seri Rambai is a 3.25 m bronze cannon on a wooden carriage at Fort Cornwallis, its mottled barrel divided by raised rings. Two small vertical handles sit near the rear, and a circular emblem on the side encloses crossed shapes within an oval ring. Below it an inscribed band reads "...RORAVIS · ME · FECIT...", and a trunnion rests in a metal fitting on the wood.

Cast in 1603, the gun was given by Dutch East India Company officers to the Sultan of Johor, possibly in 1605, for trading concessions. Aceh captured it when it destroyed Johor in 1613, and around 1795 sent it to Sultan Ibrahim of Selangor. In 1871 the British seized it after attacking Selangor over a pirate raid; it stood at the Esplanade before moving to Fort Cornwallis in the 1950s.

The gun acquired its Malay name, Seri Rambai, and its reputation as a fertility symbol while displayed at the Esplanade in George Town until the 1950s. Women are said to have placed flowers in its barrel and prayed for children, a practice compared to the caressing of Jakarta's Si Jagur.

The cannon is located within Fort Cornwallis, so visitors need to enter the fort to view it up close. The Javi inscription on its surface is best seen in good daylight, so daytime visits work better for examining details clearly.

The barrel carries a silver-inlaid Jawi inscription recording the gun's capture by Aceh in 1613 and naming the senior Acehnese officers involved. The base ring is incised with the gunsmith's signature and the date of manufacture, 1603. Look for the three pairs of heraldic lions with long, spiralling tails facing vases of flowers ahead of the dolphin handles.