State-of-the-art Sigiriya Museum opens doors to history of this World Heritage Site

Kumudini Hettiarachchi, 31st May 2009, sundaytimes.lk

It is a tale of treachery and deceit, love and hate, triumph and disaster that has fascinated people down the ages. It is also a tale of craftsmanship and sensuous art, the legacy of which still holds people in awe, more than 15 centuries later.

All about Sigiriya and more will now be available to “discerning” tourists, both local and foreign, at the state-of-the-art Sigiriya Museum and Information Centre -- having as its backdrop the formidable rock fortress – to be opened shortly.

Many are familiar with the Kasyapan period (477-495 AC), when King Kasyapa, after murdering his father King Dhatusena made his home at Sigiriya, creating a different image of this forbidding rock outcrop, starting with a passage leading through the lion’s paws and encompassing the lion staircase, the mirror wall, the beautiful apsaras, the water gardens, moated palaces, boulder gardens, terrace gardens et al.

But what of the pre- and post-Kasyapa period, asks Central Cultural Fund (CCF) Director-General Prof. Sudarshan Seneviratne, explaining its many-layered history.

Sigiriya, in addition to being a World Heritage Site, is also one of the very few large secular sites with an unbroken history from 5,000 BC to contemporary periods. It depicts a “microcosm” of the cultural and technological phases of Sri Lanka, he says.

The museum represents all these facets in their totality, he adds, explaining that the concept was conceived by the first Director of the Sigiriya Project, Prof. Senake Bandaranayake who later took up the mantle of CCF D-G, assisted by various eminent scholars. The concept was translated into the material structure by Architect Chandana Ellepola, while the internal design was handled by Japanese experts who were advised by a team of Sri Lankan specialists.

While the whole area is naturally landscaped to blend with the environment, the location is scenic, built on the Yan Oya, with most of the trees branching skyward through the museum and streams winding through it giving out a merry tinkling tone. “This is in keeping with the ability of the ancient builders who not only laid out the garden elements in a grid pattern but also embraced organic beauty and asymmetry, moulding their building on to boulders although they had sufficient engineering knowledge to remove them,” he says.

All important features of Sigiriya such as the frescoes, spiral staircase and bubble fountain have been replicated, The Sunday Times understands. “This is a bonus for anyone who cannot scale the rock,” says the DG.

The Sigiriya Museum and Information Centre has been funded by Japan, through JICA, under its Project for the Development of Culture-oriented Tourism (COT) which hopes to promote nature-culture-traditional lives.

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