Talk:Sigiriya

Name

There's a massive problem everyone's overlooking here. The article is tiled "Sigiriya" and then talks only about the rock fortress. Sigiriya, however, is a town in the Matale District within which the rock fortress is located. There's no separate page for the town of Sigiriya, and this article makes it appear as if the rock itself is called "Sigiriya": it isn't. It's the "Sigiri-gala" in Sinhala (Rock of Sigiriya). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Walkalia (talk • contribs) 19:32, 10 December 2012 (UTC) im dd

how to made lt 43.250.243.63 (talk) 16:33, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

• If this is so, we should change the name of the Page and, if appropriate add a redirect, however, I suspect that the fortress is, however eroneously, commonly called Sigiriya, so we must proceed with caution and due consensus.

IceDragon64 (talk) 20:02, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Untitled

Preparing some additional personal photographs and additional text for this article.

Some Images do not appear correctly, not sure why. Shoka

Atarilynx999 (talk) 18:38, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Deleted Images

Sadly somebody seems to have taken it upon themselves to delete User:Janakagoon@yahoo.com personal photo's of Sigiria as unsuitably licenced, despite the email posted on that users talk page committing them to the public domain. From memory the deleted images were all tourist snapshots. I have had had no response from User:Janakagoon@yahoo.com directly when I asked for clarification, but the mail message on the users talk page seems quite clear. Big time copyright violation --NOT.

Worse the images from the mirror wall frescoes have been attributed to Janakagoon, I believe incorrectly. I have real reservations about these images, these images are probably 20 plus years old, the original murals have decayed badly, and in two visits to the site, I have not obtained a usable photograph, so my belief is these have been scanned from a copyright source. I'd love to know differently. I've left them in place while attempting to locate at least a few reasonable correctly licenced images to replace them.

I have some further personal photographs that will replace some of the missing images, in all cases unfortunately worse than the originals. Sigh. Any other visitors to this splendid site got any suitably licenced photographic material they can offer to try and repair the damage?

Mindless vandalism at its worst....--Shoka 19:30, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

latest edits

I restored the reference to Sigiriya as purely a monastery. See http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2002/11/03/fea13.html for support of this interpretation.

I am not convinced, I've been there and some of the structures, particularly a poised boulder partially detatched from the rock look pretty military to me, but it is certainly "one interpretation" even if rather a stretch. --Shoka 20:17, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Replaced some of the deleted images with images scanned from my own prints. Better than nothing, but modern digital photographs would be better.--Shoka 22:36, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Lat, Lon ?

Looks like this has been added :)

Article has had extensive text added, lifted almost literally from this website http://www.lankalibrary.com/heritage/sigiriya.html

Removed plagurised text. Would be more approprite as seperate articles on Kasyapa and Datusena referenced from this article rather than swamp this article with disputed myth.--Shoka 21:22, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Removed text followes:

Removed criticism of the access to the top of Sigiriya

Removed some bitter comments about the access stairway. They unfortunately have a grain of truth. Though stable the stairway is exceedingly exposed and the handrails very low. Obviously somebody did not enjoy the climb. Comments not approprate to the article though.

On both occasions I have visited there have been visitors who baulked at the foot of the Lion steps and refused to make the final climb to the top of the rock. I can see their point, it terrifes me, but I'm acrophobic. That I've made it twice is some indication of the view from the top.

I've reviewed what is said in the article about the ruins at the top of the rock, and I believe that the description is accurate. Deciding if the remains justify the terrors of the stairway is very much a personal choice. The article has photographs to help you decide.

Unsure if I should add a more explicit warning about the stairway to the article, the description of the staircase as airy and the inclusion of the photographs with people for scale should give warning of what the visitor is facing.

My information on the sites is also several years old. When I visited the site the stairway was traversed by hundreds of people every day. Recent unbiased updates appreciated. Has the safety of that stair degenerated ? --Shoka 21:59, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Sihagiri or Chitrakuta?

A news paper article said that that Sigiriya could have been called Chitraraja Palace, the Palace fortress of Ravana which became a Yakkha temple called Chitrakuta in the days of King Pandukabhaya, the residence of the Yakkha noble called Chithraraja who helped King Pandukabhaya to come to power. I would appreciate a discussion.

Missing Photos

Some photographs have gone missing, particularly one of the iron stairway across the face of the rock from the Lion Gate to the top. I think this is a disservice, potential visitors should know what they are facing, in the past I've edited out some very bitter comments from people who have not had forewarning of the climb. I see the advantages of the replacements, but the new photo of the stair does not give any real perspective of the climb up from the Lion Gate. It looks like a 10 metre climb, not 150 metres of traverse across an open rockface, as it is in reality --Shoka 23:19, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Tour Section

While this section seems well-sourced and pretty well-written, I don't think it's quite appropriate for the encyclopedia. Perhaps it should be transwikied to wikitravel? Random89 21:08, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I am moving it from the article to here on the talk page, hopefully someone will do something with it. Random89 16:33, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Tour

File:Lions Paws.JPG

The Lion Gate & Final Climbing Stretch

Visitors arrive outside the outer moats, with the rock rising above the trees in the mid distance. Paths through the complex of moats and gardens lead to the foot of the slope. Stone stairways climb the steep slope at the base of the rock, winding through the remains of the lower parts of the palace, reaching a terrace that traverses along the lower edge of the vertical face of the rock. The rock above this terrace, known as the mirror wall, was at one time adorned with frescoes, some of which can still be seen, though unfortunately now much faded. At the end of the terrace beneath the highest part of the rock, the terrace opens out into a substantial courtyard.

From here the climb to the top of the rock is via a modern iron stairway that reaches the rock face through the remains of the original brick gateway, the Lion Gate, now degenerated to a massive pair of brick paws. The ruined paws are all that remain of a huge head and fore paws of a lion, whose open mouth served as the entrance to the royal palace. The route continues around, across and up the cliff face via a rather airy iron staircase, a modern replacement for the original brick stairway, that vanished along with the lion's head during the 1400 years since the palace was constructed.

The stairway ends at the highest point of the rock, the upper palace falls away in gentle tiers towards the opposite end of the rock from this point. The ruins of the palace buildings rise only perhaps half a metre above the surface of the rock, but the extensive works cut into the surface of the rock have endured better.

Random89 16:36, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

References

Encyclopedic Style?

The style of some of the writing is not very encyclopedic. We should not state that something is beautiful or wonderful, however obvious such a thing seems to be to the writer. If we wish to convey this concept we need to quote a notable source as saying so rather than saying it ourselves.

IceDragon64 (talk) 19:57, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Copyright concerns

This article was understandably flagged for copyright concerns in May 2013. I have checked over a dozen sites with text that matches this, but so far every single one I've found postdates this article, even this blog post from 2006. I'm removing the copy-paste tag accordingly with the trust that if somebody finds a source that predates or that they aren't sure about, it will be specifically identified for comparison. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:24, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

the "rock" is what geologically speaking ???

I found this

Location and geology of the area

The sites investigated are situated in central Sri Lanka (fig. 1). Climatically, the area is part of the “dry” zone, receiving c. 1000–1500 mm of rainfall per year (Swan 1983). The Sigiriya area is situated at the boundary between the Precambrian Highland Series, consisting of metasediment and charnockitic gneisses, and the Wanni Complex, consisting of gneisses, migmatites, granite gneisses and scattered metasediments and charnockitic rocks (Cooray 1991). East of Sigiriya is a thick limestone band running in a NNE–SSW direction, interbanded with narrow, well exposed beds of khondalite and paragneisses (Vitanage 1957). Geomorphologically, the area consists of undulating plains with insular heights (“inselbergs”; Swan 1983). The soil type is characterised as a deep weathered, reddish brown earth (Cooray

1967).

inside an archaeology paper but I'm not certain exactly which locale they are refering to.

it's clearly a volcanic plug, so probably something like granite - but I did see mention that the steps were carved of limestone - and that seems odd, unless they were added later.

there might be something in geology of 'ceylon' here but that's behind a paywall. EdwardLane (talk) 03:39, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Well, it needs a geology section. ResMar 16:17, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

A geology section would be really cool and relevant. I have found this paper which has a section on Sigiriya. Uvants (talk) 19:16, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Supernatural Powers

Recent edits to the page are highly suspect and filled with grammatical and spelling errors. Specifically the Location section, with lines like:

"The site is way too advanced than its time period and is impossible to build such area without any supernatural power.Even today, it is impossible to build this type of impressive site."

Madjackmcmad78 (talk) 14:37, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Citing a tweet

Would citing this tweet from the verified account of the US Embassy in Colombo be appropriate? Not too familiar with the rules around this. Uvants (talk) 19:12, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

• Uvants2, social media websites, including Twitter, are not acceptable or reliable sources. Dan arndt (talk) 21:34, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Gotcha! Uvants (talk) 06:01, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Ravana

This place is constantly associated with the Ravana of Ramayana. But cannot see any mention. Anyone please help ChandlerMinh (talk) 09:44, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Assosiation with Ravana is a WP:FRINGE theory. Kindly, provide reliable sources stating so to justify such inclusion.--Chanaka L (talk) 11:50, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Website

Is there some kind of edit war to point the website link in the infobox to various competing tour operator sites? Uvants (talk) 16:46, 29 June 2021 (UTC)