Lifau monument, Monument building in Lifau, Timor-Leste.

The Lifau monument centres on a bronze caravel 13 metres long, 4.5 metres high and 3.2 metres wide, assembled from separately cast parts. Two cloth sails bear the Cross of the Order of Christ, and eight life-size bronze figures show two sailors aboard, a soldier with a standard, a monk and a navigator facing three Timorese warriors on land. Paths, water features and stelae complete the site beside the 1974 Padrão.

António de Abreu sighted Timor in 1512, though it is not certain he landed. Portuguese Dominicans came ashore on 18 August 1515, and in 1556 the settlement of Lifau was founded to secure the sandalwood trade; it became the first colonial capital of Portuguese Timor, held until 1975. The bronze monument was inaugurated on 27 November 2015 for the 500th anniversary, beside a replica padrão erected on 14 August 1974.

The bronze caravel carries two cloth sails bearing the Cross of the Order of Christ, and eight life-size statues show the first meeting: two sailors aboard, a soldier with a banner, a monk and a navigator facing three Timorese warriors on land. In Timor-Leste the 1515 landing is also remembered as the start of the island's evangelisation.

The monument stands in Lifau, in the Pante Macassar administrative post of the Oecusse exclave, next to the padrão erected on 14 August 1974. The site combines the bronze caravel with paths, water features and several stelae, so allow time to walk around the whole ensemble. Oecusse is reached overland from Indonesian West Timor or by air and sea from Dili.

The caravel was not cast in one piece: each component was cast separately and then assembled, much as the original wooden ships were built. The bronze hull is 13 metres long, about half the length of a real caravel, and weighs 8.5 of the monument's 10 tonnes.