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| Sunday, 26 October 2003 |
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Feats of Sigiriya engineers remain a mystery by Karel Roberts Ratnaweera Amidst the recent controversy surrounding Sigiriya on the setting up of a son et lumiere (sound and light) - type entertainment suggested by some foreigners,new findings about the refuge of the patricide prince Kashyapa are arising from time to time. Head of the IT division, Central Engineering Bureau, Civil Engineer Harsha Suriaarachchi, told the Sunday Observer that people tend to 'imagine' that two concepts existed when Sigiriya was in its heyday. One was that water from ground level was pumped up through the innards of the rock to reach the top and create pools, which it is believed, were used as bathing places by the royal women of the Court of Kashyapa. The second belief is that rain was 'extracted' from the sky (clouds) by the use of a special technology unknown to modern Sri Lankan engineers. However, Harsha Suriaarachchi said that such technologies may possibly have existed, but since these methodologies have not been studied in-depth, they remain unconfirmed. He also said that it is possible that modern knowledge may not be capable of grasping the technological methods used to pump ground water to the top of Sigiriya rock or extracting rain from the sky to create pools and fountains. Some developed countries today create artificial rain from clouds,but it may not be the same technology employed by Sigiriya engineers of the period, Suriaarachchi said. He also cited the example of the Jetawana dagoba at Anuradhapura which is the tallest existing edifice in the world. He said that the foundation consists of hundreds of times more bricks than were used for the construction of the superstructure itself. He said that modern engineering knowledge does not still know how this was done. In the same way,it is possible that the feats attributed to the Sigiriya engineers remain a mystery to this day. |
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