How it began
The gardens were built at Sigiriya, the capital that King Kasyapa I raised around a granite peak about 180 meters high. UNESCO dates his reign to 477 to 495 CE. Kasyapa was a son of King Dhatusena by a non-royal consort. Jagath Weerasinghe, Sigiriya's director of archaeology, told the BBC that the water gardens and the intricate use of water were meant to send a message of the king's power and ingenuity to those who doubted him.
How it works
Water comes from a nearby reservoir, the Sigiriya tank, which lies slightly higher than the gardens. Underground terracotta pipes use gravity and hydraulic pressure to carry it to the pools, fountains and streams. More water comes from the summit, where rain-filled pools drain through channels cut in the rock to a cistern that feeds the same pipes. The fountains are limestone plates with symmetrical holes above a small chamber. Pressure builds in the chamber and pushes water up about four or five inches when the level is high.
What changed first
The archaeologist Senake Bandaranayake, founding director of archaeology at Sigiriya, wrote that the design knit hydraulic structures of varied scale into a single network, with conduits laid at different depths to give different water levels. Pavilions were surrounded by shallow, slowly moving water over pebbled or marbled floors, which cooled the air. The miniature water gardens were used for musical performances.
Where it stands today
UNESCO listed the Ancient City of Sigiriya as a World Heritage Site in 1982. The BBC describes the gardens as the best-preserved water gardens in South Asia and among the oldest landscaped gardens in the world, with water systems still working almost 1,500 years later. Sigiriya drew just over one million visitors in 2019.
