NO. 47.— 1896.] FORTIFICATIONS OF YAPAHUWA. 



237 



NOTE ON THE FORTIFICATIONS OF YAPAHUWA. 



By J. Harward. 



The ruins of Yapahuwa have been described with some 

 fulness in a Paper in Once a Week (August, 1864) ; in a 

 Sessional Paper (LI., 1886) by Mr. A. E. Williams, and more 

 recently in a Paper by Mr. F. H. Modder, published in this 

 Society's Journal (No. 44, 1893). These descriptions, while 

 they do ample justice to the remains of the Mdligdwa, give 

 no adequate idea of the outline of the city itself and its 

 fortifications. 



I contribute this brief note on the subject in the hope 

 that it may lead to the Archaeological Commissioner some 

 day making an accurate examination of an interesting site. 



Yapahuwa, though not very extensive, is the best specimen 

 that I have seen of a Sinhalese fortified city. The rock of 

 Yapahuwa is a huge isolated boulder of elliptical shape about 

 300 ft. high. Its sides are mostly precipitous, but it can be 

 ascended on its south-east face. At this point, on a large 

 ledge, about 106 ft. above the plain, stands the Mdligdwa, 

 whose window is so familiar an object in the Colombo 

 Museum, and whose imposing staircase and doorway have 

 been fully described in the Papers before referred to. 



On the level ground at the foot of the south and south- 

 east faces of the rock are two walls in the shape of 

 concentric semicircles : the inner one is a stone wall with a 

 diameter of about 200 yards, the outer one a steep earth- 

 work faced with brick, whose diameter is about 450 yards. 

 The steps of the Mdligdwa seem to stand exactly at the 

 middle point of the diameter on which those semicircles are 

 described. These two walls are now overgrown with 

 jungle, but their course can be seen clearly by any one on 

 the steps of the Mdligdwa. 



