Inflation, the national treasury is exhausted, oil reserves are only one day old, and debt exceeds 50 billion US dollars... On July 6, local time, Sri LankaThe Prime Minister announced that Sri Lanka is bankrupt and the country is suffering from the most serious economic crisis in history , will last until at least 2023.
Pictures from Sri Lanka Airlines
Sri Lanka has always been famous for its blue sea beaches and mountain tea gardens surrounded by palm trees . It is also known as the "Kingdom of Gemstones" and is the most beautiful island in Marco Polo 's mind. When the news reached China, many people felt sorry for this "pearl in the Indian Ocean." Others said that they missed the museum on their last trip and wanted to go there next time.
What are the cultural and cultural beauties of Sri Lanka that make people care about it so much? Browsing and searching on travel websites out of curiosity, I gained a lot, which I would like to share with you.
[ world cultural heritage ]
Although Sri Lanka is small in land area, it has 6 world cultural heritages and 2 world natural heritages .
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The Holy City of Anuradhapura
was listed as a World Cultural Heritage in 1982
On the banks of the Aruvi River in the north, it is the capital of the Anuradhapura District. It was built in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the center of Buddhism. Du, the oldest city in Sri Lanka, became the capital of Sri Lanka in 380 BC, and was the seat of Sri Lanka's royal power for the next thousand years. The ruins were discovered in the 19th century and have been restored to this day.
There is a small museum in the ancient city, the Anuradhapura Archaeological Museum, which displays cultural relics and interesting artworks unearthed in Anuradhapura and other parts of Sri Lanka.
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The ancient city of Polonnaruwa was closed in 1982. Listed as a World Cultural Heritage site, it is located in the north-central part of Sri Lanka, 216 kilometers northeast of the capital, Colombo. It became the capital of Sri Lanka in 933 AD. In the ancient city, there are not only Brahmanical ruins from the Kauras period, but also Palak. Remains of the fabulous garden city built by King Rama I in the twelfth century.
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The ancient city of Sigiriya
was listed as a World Cultural Heritage in 1982
About 170 kilometers northeast of Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, it is located on the "Lion Rock" about 200 meters high. It is a fortress-like city built in the 5th century Dadushena Dynasty. During the period, it was famous for its Sigiriya murals, which are the only non-religious murals that have been handed down in Sri Lanka's history.
Lion Rock is a scenic spot in Sigiriya, Sri Lanka. Photo source: [email protected]
There are two major attractions in Lion Rock: one is to admire the world-famous "Angel-like Girl" mural in Sigiriya through the spiral staircase; the other is to climb to the top and watch the afterglow of the sunset. land.
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Dambulla Golden Temple
was listed as a World Cultural Heritage in 1991.
is a Sri Lankan Buddhist temple cave located in the middle of the island of Sri Lanka, 149 kilometers northeast of Colombo. The Golden Temple of Dambulla was built in the 1st century BC and is a place of pilgrimage in Sri Lanka. It is a relatively typical cave-style temple. It contains 2,100 square meters of murals and 157 statues, which are extremely precious. The Buddhist Caves include five sanctuaries. They are the largest and best-preserved cave temples in Sri Lanka. They are of great religious and artistic value and showcase the development of Buddhist art. charm.
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The Holy City of Kandy
was listed as a World Cultural Heritage in 1988. It was founded in the 114th century. In 1592, it became the location of the Royal Palace and the Temple of the Tooth Relic. In 1815, the British invaded. It lasted for 5 centuries and accumulated human experience. His talents in urban planning, architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and dance are therefore regarded as important cultural heritage.
Buddha Tooth Relic Temple
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Galle Castle
was listed as a World Cultural Heritage in 1988.
Galle is located on the southern coast of Sri Lanka. It was one of the important hubs from Europe to the Far East during the Age of Discovery. The old city and its castle are built on a rocky peninsula, about 100 kilometers away from Colombo. It is famous not for the beach but the castle.
Panoramic aerial view of the ancient city of Galle
Galle uses the ancient old city wall as an iconic symbol of the local landscape, witnessing the changes in the colonial period.
[Museum]
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National Museum of Sri Lanka
Opened in 1877, the National Museum of Sri Lanka is the oldest museum in Sri Lanka. It is a double-story grand white building located in the center of Colombo, the capital, and the largest museum in Sri Lanka. The museum collects representative cultural relics from various periods in Sri Lanka's history, including photographs, paintings, sculptures, gems, stone carvings, fabrics and other cultural relics. The collection is rich.
The museum has more than 20 exhibition halls, most of which are thematic exhibition halls, such as the Sri Lankan Buddhism development history exhibition hall, etc. Among them, there is a stone stele discovered in Hall 4 in 1912 - the stele of giving to the Buddhist temple in Mount Ceylon. The world calls it the "Zheng He stele". It was built in 1409 when the famous Chinese navigator Zheng He first visited Sri Lanka in the Ming Dynasty. . This stele was carved in Nanjing before Zheng He's voyage to the West, and then brought to Sri Lanka on the ship. It expresses the praise and dedication of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam in three languages.
It is said that Zheng He erected monuments in many places overseas during his 28 years of seven voyages to the West, but this is the only one that has been discovered and preserved to this day. The stone tablet confirms that since the beginning of the Maritime Silk Road, there has been a history of cultural and trade friendship between China and Sri Lanka. In addition, the National Museum of Sri Lanka also collects many precious Chinese ceramics and other precious cultural relics.
Adjacent to the Sri Lanka Museum is the Natural History Museum . This natural history museum mainly exhibits specimens of Sri Lanka's native plants and animals, especially endangered species. Many specimens were made very early.
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Dutch Colonial Museum
Sri Lanka was colonized by the Portuguese, Dutch and British for more than 400 years, and did not become fully independent until 1948. To this end, Sri Lanka has established a museum to commemorate the Dutch colonial history on its soil. The Dutch Period Museum was the official residence of the Dutch governor in the 17th century. It was later used as a Catholic seminary, a military hospital, a police station and a post office to this day. The museum exhibits mainly include furniture and old documents and cultural relics from the Dutch colonial period, telling the history of the Dutch East India Company in Sri Lanka.
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Underwater Museum
In June 2020, the first underwater museum in the country’s history, carefully built by the Sri Lanka Navy, opened on the Galle coast in southern Sri Lanka. The museum is located at a water depth of about 15 meters and has a large number of cultural relics and sculptures. The Sri Lanka Navy began setting up this underwater museum in April. The sculptures are all handmade by naval officers and then placed into the water one by one.
The purpose of building this underwater museum is to conserve marine life. Many of the coral reefs in the museum are made from the remains of sunken oil rigs, dredgers and other items, while the artificial reef sculptures in the museum are handmade by Navy personnel from concrete and environmentally friendly materials. These exhibits can be used as habitats for corals and fish to promote their reproduction, and some results have been achieved so far.
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Galle National Maritime Museum
Galle National Maritime Museum is the most modern and high-tech museum in Sri Lanka. It displays a large number of cultural relics excavated under the sea and displays the past, present and future of this town related to the sea through various means. future. In 2004, the museum was severely damaged by a tsunami. After three years of reconstruction and repair, the museum added a new exhibit - a model that clearly analyzed the principles of tsunami generation.
The museum displays a large number of cultural relics excavated under the sea, such as maps, ships, ropes, pottery, wine glasses, tobacco pouches, artillery , etc., showing the long history of maritime shipping in southern Sri Lanka, marine ecosystems and fish specimens. Most of these cultural relics come from shipwrecks off the southern coast, and some are nearly 800 years old.
An important port on the Silk Road
Sri Lanka is an important node on the Maritime Silk Road.
In August 2018, the Shanghai Museum archaeological team went to Sri Lanka and carried out a 40-day joint archaeological work with the local people to excavate ancient ruins in the port city of Jaffna, filling the gap in archaeological research on the Maritime Silk Road. Prior to this, Shanghai Museum had visited Sri Lanka twice and conducted preliminary investigations and data collection on some important sites.
The excavated broken porcelain fragments
The China-Sri Lanka joint archaeological team unearthed a large number of late Northern Song Chinese porcelain fragments at the local Alepiti site, including more than 600 porcelain fragments from China. It was preliminarily concluded that the origin of the porcelain was Guangzhou and Fujian and other areas have found the most direct evidence for trade between China and Sri Lanka in ancient times.
A bird's-eye view of the Alepiti ruins, picture from Shanghai Museum
According to historical records, around the 5th century AD, the Chinese eminent monk Faxian went to Sri Lanka to study Buddhism; in the 15th century, the Chinese navigator Zheng He also went on many missions overseas Passed through and set foot on Sri Lanka for the first time.
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Conclusion
There is a precedent for national bankruptcy. Iceland filed for bankruptcy during the economic crisis in 2008 and took three years to get out of the crisis. Although there is still a long way to go, I wish Sri Lanka can get out of the predicament soon.
◎The pictures and text come from "(Shanghai) Lecture: Sri Lanka's World Cultural Heritage" and other online materials, such as infringement and deletion.
©️Prohibited second modification丨Stealing
finishing丨Jiang Jing editor丨Li Tong
