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The ‘Lion Fortress’ of Sri Lanka was swallowed by the jungle Source : thearchaeologist Built in the fifth century, Sri Lanka’s Sigiriya fortress attracted the attention of British archaeologists in the 1800s, who were amazed by its leonine rock art and beautiful frescoes. Perched on a slab of rock that juts dramatically over the forests of central Sri Lanka, Sigiriya is as imposing a sight now as it must have been when it was first built by a fierce king in the fifth century A.D. Meaning “lion’s rock,” Sigiriya (designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1982) is accessed by way of passageways cut into the rock face between a monumental pair of lion paws. The fortress was later swallowed by the forest, and only familiar to local villagers. Outsiders used knowledge of its past, preserved in Buddhist texts, to search for the ancient site. British historians rediscovered its astonishing buildings ...