No. 27. — 1884.] tissamahAkAma archaeology. 69 



later date was "discovered in excavating the high-level 

 channel from the sluice. Four and a-half feet from the 

 surface, exactly under a medium-sized tree, and about six feet 

 above the lowest stratum of remains, a large wide-mouthed 

 chatty was encountered. This, although broken, was taken 

 carefully out, and was found to contain a number of cal- 

 cined pieces of bone. Inverted on these was a small 

 earthenware lamp^ already described. (" Household Uten- 

 sils," No. 22.) As the groove for the wick is blackened by fire ? 

 the lamp has evidently been in use, and we may assume 

 that it belonged to the buried person. The Buddhist 

 priests at the Maharama and Yatthala dagabas (representing 

 the Siamese and Amarapura sects) are both strongly of 

 opinion that these are not the remains of a priest — a belief 

 which is the more justified from the fact of there being no 

 wihara in the immediate neighbourhood. It is uncertain 

 how long Tissawsewa has been breached and deserted, but 

 it has undoubtedly been so for a long period. Hundreds 

 of years must have elapsed after the embankment gave 

 way, before the bed of the tank and the paddy field could 

 be overgrown with dense jungle and forest, as was the case 

 before the recent restoration. It is almost certain that the 

 tank was in order when Tamils were settled at it in the 

 time of Magna, in the early part of the 13th century, 

 but I have met with nothing of later date regarding the 

 place. The shape of many bits of pottery found in a layer 

 immediately below the vegetable mould at the surface of 

 the ground resembles that of fragments in the lowest 

 stratum, and is, in many cases, unlike that of earthenware 

 of modern manufacture, some of the articles, such as plates, 

 being no longer made in Ceylon. These must have been 

 deposited before the tank burst, and the form of burial 

 above described may belong to the same period. There is 

 nothing to indicate its exact date, and all that can be said 

 with accuracy is that it is apparently some centuries old, 

 and that it may possibly date from the 14th century.* 

 In conclusion, I beg to state that, being in a remote 



* Compare the account in the Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum. 

 Vol. I., p. 23, of the discovery of four similar cinerary urns at Bairat, 

 the lamp, however, being wanting. 



