Sigiriya: The Lion Rock

Sigiriya stands in Matale District in the Central Province of Sri Lanka. UNESCO describes it as the ruins of a capital built on the steep slopes and summit of a granite peak about 180 metres high. The peak is known as the Lion's Rock. UNESCO inscribed the site on the World Heritage List in 1982 under the name Ancient City of Sigiriya.

The rock was in use long before it became a royal seat. The evaluation prepared for UNESCO by ICOMOS, the International Council on Monuments and Sites, states that the site has been inhabited since the 3rd century BC. Inscriptions left in caves and rock shelters used by Buddhist monks are the evidence for this early period.

The site is known above all for one short period in the 5th century. King Kassapa I, also written Kashyapa, ruled from 477 to 495. ICOMOS records that he was the son of King Dhatusena and came to power after arranging his father's death and displacing his brother Moggallana. Fearing his brother's return, he had a fortified palace built on the rock.

It did not save him. In 495 Kassapa was defeated in battle and took his own life. Moggallana then returned the site to the monks. The Central Cultural Fund, the government body that manages the site, states that Sigiriya served as a monastery until the 14th century. After that it was gradually abandoned and the forest closed over it.

The remains cover far more than the rock. On the summit are the ruins of the palace, with cisterns cut to hold rainwater. The Central Cultural Fund gives the area of the summit as about 1.6 hectares. At the foot of the rock lay the lower city, defended by a wall. The Fund describes an outer defence of moat and ramparts enclosing about 70 hectares.

The western side holds the gardens. The Fund divides them into three kinds: water gardens laid out in symmetrical patterns with pools, channels and fountains; boulder gardens, where brick structures were built among natural boulders; and terraced gardens linked by stairways. Some of the fountains, it notes, still work in the rainy season.

Halfway up the western face, in a sheltered pocket of rock, are the paintings for which Sigiriya is widely known. They show female figures. ICOMOS counted 21 in its 1982 evaluation, and the Central Cultural Fund now gives the number of surviving paintings as twenty-two. Who the figures represent is not settled. ICOMOS found that the paintings began a style that lasted for centuries.

Below them runs the Mirror Wall. The Fund explains that it was finished in polished lime plaster. Visitors scratched verses and comments onto it between the 6th and 14th centuries, and more than 1,800 of these have been documented. ICOMOS describes the poems as "among the most ancient texts in the Sinhalese language".

The name comes from the entrance to the summit. UNESCO describes galleries and staircases that emerge from the mouth of a gigantic lion built of brick and plaster. Only the paws remain. The Central Cultural Fund gives the old name as Sinhagiri, the Lion Rock.

The Fund is responsible for conserving the site. It lists the monitoring of the paintings, the stabilising of structures and the control of visitor impact among its tasks, and uses 3D scanning and photogrammetry to plan the work. Sri Lanka Tourism notes that a museum at the site shows photographs of the excavations, reproductions of the paintings and translations of some of the verses from the Mirror Wall. The climb to the summit, according to the Fund, involves about 1,200 steps.