The first academic to note the chart"s archaeological importance was H C P Bell, a British civil servant appointed as the first Commissioner of Archaeology of Ceylon (Sri Lanka"s former name). Bell included a description of the chart in his 1911 report for the Governor of Ceylon, where he concluded that, "This ancient "map of the world", perhaps the oldest in existence, is of quite extraordinary interest. Its presence… testifies to the antiquity of that astronomical lore still pursued in some of the Buddhist monasteries of Ceylon."