Sigiriya Rock Fortress

Sigiriya in Google map


View Larger Map 

Sigiriya is a one of the famous and most attractive place in Sri Lanka. Sigiriya means lion’s rock. Hight of the rock is around 200 meters.  According to the history of Sri Lanka this rock used as a kingdom in Sri Lanka by king Kashyapa in 5^th century.  This rock is one of the UNESCO heritages in Sri Lanka. Sigiriya consists with all features in the kingdom such as flower gardens, lakes, caves etc. According to the Mahawansha (main Chronicle of Sri Lanka) king kashyapa built his kingdom in Sigiriya to protect from his brother king Mihidu.  But legends says that king Kashyapa  subsided during the war between his brother. Sigiriya provides evident for the great technologies in ancient Sri Lanka.  Several ponds are located in the top of the Sigiriya. Water for this water gardens come from the underground pipes system. This system is also active in rain season. 

Drawings of Maidens

Most of the people climb Sigiriya in order to watch these drawings. Those are very beautiful. Most of the peoples believes those drawings shows the ladies who was gone for warship the Buddha. But some peoples give various interpretations for these paintings. They says those paintings describes Angeles. According to the legends and references there was 500 paintings in Sigiriya, but today 22 drawings only exists.

The mirror wall

The mirror wall is a face of the rock polished as the mirror. This is another example for great technique in ancient Sri Lanka. In this wall peoples who visit Sigiriya wrote thousands of poems to describe their experience. Those are describing the beauty of the drawings. These poems wrote in ancient language in Sri Lanka.