Inflation, depletion of the national treasury, oil reserves with only one day left, debt of more than $50 billion... On July 6, local time, sri Lanka's prime minister announced that Sri Lanka was bankrupt, and the country was suffering the worst economic crisis in history, which would last at least until 2023.
Image from SriLankan Airlines
Sri Lanka has long been known for its palm-fringed beaches and alpine tea plantations, but also known as the "Jewel Kingdom", 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 say they missed the museum on their last trip and want to go back next time.
What is the beauty of Sri Lanka that makes people so concerned? With a curious mood to browse and search on the travel website, the harvest is very rich, and share it with everyone.
【World Cultural Heritage】
Although Sri Lanka is a small country, it has 6 World Heritage Sites and 2 World Natural Heritage Sites.
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Anuradapura Holy City
It was registered as a World Heritage Site in 1982
On the banks of the Aruvi River in the north, the capital of the Anuradhapura district, built in the 5th century BC, is considered the capital of Buddhism, is the oldest city in Sri Lanka, became the capital of Sri Lanka in 380 BC, and was the seat of Sri Lankan royal power for the next thousand years, the ruins were discovered in the 19th century and repaired to this day.
The ancient city has a small museum, the Anuradhapura Archaeological Museum, which displays artifacts and interesting works of art unearthed in Anuradhapura and other parts of Sri Lanka
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The ancient city of Polonnaruwa
It was registered as a World Heritage Site in 1982
Located in the north-central part of Sri Lanka, 216 km northeast of the capital Colombo, it became the capital of Sri Lanka in 933 AD, and the ancient city is home to not only the Brahmanical ruins of the Khao Las period, but also the remains of a fabulous garden city built by Parakrama I in the twelfth century.
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The ancient city of Sigiriya
It was registered as a World Heritage Site in 1982
About 170 km northeast of Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, on the "Lion Rock" about 200 meters high, the fortress-like city pool was built in the 5th century during the Dadushena Dynasty and is famous for its Sigiriya murals, which are the only non-religious murals handed down in Sri Lankan history.
Lion Rock is a scenic spot in the city of Sigiriya, Sri Lanka. Image source: [email protected]
Lion Rock has two major attractions: one is to admire the world-famous "Angelic Maiden" mural in Sigiriya through the spiral staircase; The second is to climb to the top and watch the sunset sprinkle the land.
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Dambulkkin Temple
It was listed as a World Heritage Site in 1991
it is a Sri Lankan Buddhist temple located in the middle of the island of Sri Lanka, 149 km northeast of Colombo City. Built in the 1st century BC as a pilgrimage site in Sri Lanka, Dambulkkin Temple is a typical cave-style temple. With 2,100 square metres of murals and 157 statues, the caves include five sanctuaries and are the largest and best-preserved cave temples in Sri Lanka, with religious artistic value and the charm of Buddhist art.
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Kandy Holy City
It was registered as a World Heritage Site in 1988
Founded in the 14th century, it became the site of the royal palace and the Temple of the Tooth Tooth in 1592, and lasted for 5 centuries until the Invasion of the British in 1815, accumulating human ingenuity in urban planning, architecture, sculpture, painting, music and dance, and is regarded as an important cultural heritage.
Tooth Temple
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Galle Castle
It was registered as a World Heritage Site in 1988
Located on the southern coast of Sri Lanka, Galle was one of the important hubs for travel from Europe to the Far East during the Age of Discovery. The Old Town and its castle are built on a rocky peninsula about 100 km from Colombo, not for the beaches, but for the castle.
Aerial view of the ancient city of Galle
Galle bears witness to the transformation of the colonial period with its ancient old city walls as an iconic symbol of the local landscape.
【Museums】
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Sri Lanka National Museum
Opened in 1877, the National Museum of Sri Lanka is the oldest museum in Sri Lanka, a two-storey grand white building in the heart of the capital, Colombo, and the largest museum in Sri Lanka. The museum treasures representative cultural relics from various periods in Sri Lankan history, including photographs, paintings, sculptures, gemstones, stone carvings, fabrics and other cultural relics.
The museum has more than 20 exhibition halls, most of which are thematic exhibition halls, such as the exhibition hall on the history of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Among them, There is a stone stele discovered in 1912 - the Busch Ceylon Mountain Buddhist Temple Stele, known as the "Zheng He Monument", which was built in 1409 when the famous Chinese navigator Zheng He first visited Sri Lanka in the Ming Dynasty. The monument was carved in Nanjing before Zheng He's voyage to the West and then taken to Sri Lanka by ship, where it is praised and dedicated to Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam in three languages.
It is said that Zheng He erected monuments in many overseas places during the 28 years of his seven voyages to the West, but it was discovered and preserved to this day. The stone stele confirms that since the beginning of the Maritime Silk Road, there has been a friendly history of cultural and trade exchanges between China and Sri Lanka. In addition, the National Museum of Sri Lanka also houses many precious cultural relics such as precious Chinese ceramics.
Adjacent to the Sri Lanka Museum is the Natural History Museum. This natural history museum mainly exhibits specimens of native Plants and Animals of Sri Lanka, especially endangered species, many of which were produced very early.
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Dutch Colonial Museum
Sri Lanka was colonized by Portugal, the Netherlands, and the British for more than 400 years, until 1948, when it became fully independent. To this end, Sri Lanka has established museums to commemorate the colonial history of the Netherlands on its soil. The Dutch Period Museum was the official residence of the Dutch governor in the 17th century and has since been used as a Catholic seminary, a military hospital, a police station, and a post office. The museum's exhibits are dominated by Dutch colonial furniture and old documents and artifacts that tell 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 created by the Sri Lankan Navy, opened on the coast of Galle in southern Sri Lanka. The location of the museum is about 15 meters deep in the water and has a large number of artifacts and sculptures. The Sri Lankan Navy began erecting this underwater museum in April, with sculptures all handmade by naval officers and then placed in the water one by one.
This underwater museum was built to preserve marine life. Many of the museum's coral reefs are made from the wreckage of sunken oil rigs, dredgers and other objects, while the artificial reef sculptures in the museum are handmade by naval personnel using concrete and eco-friendly materials. These exhibits can be used as habitats for corals and fish, promoting their reproduction, and there are already small results.
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National Maritime Museum of Galle
The National Maritime Museum in Galle is Sri Lanka's most modern and high-tech museum, displaying a large number of artifacts excavated under the sea, showing the past, present and future of the town in relation to the sea through various means. In 2004, the museum was badly damaged by a tsunami, and after three years of reconstruction and repair, the museum added an exhibit – a model that analyzes the principles of tsunami generation very clearly.
The museum displays a large number of artifacts excavated under the sea, such as maps, boats, ropes, pottery, wine glasses, cigarette bags, artillery, etc., showing the long history of maritime transport in southern Sri Lanka, marine ecosystems and fish specimens. Most of these artifacts come from shipwrecks off the southern coast, and some are nearly 800 years old.
An important port on the Silk Roads
Sri Lanka is an important node on the Maritime Silk Road.
In August 2018, the Shanghai Museum archaeological team went to Sri Lanka to carry out a 40-day joint archaeological work with the local area to excavate the ancient ruins of the port city of Jaffna, filling the gap in the archaeological research of the Maritime Silk Road. Prior to this, the Shanghai Museum visited Sri Lanka twice to conduct preliminary investigations and data collection on some important sites.
Excavated pieces of broken porcelain
The Sino-Sri Lankan joint archaeological team excavated a large number of fragments of Chinese porcelain from the late Northern Song Dynasty at the local Alepiti site, of which more than 600 pieces of porcelain from China, and initially concluded that the porcelain production area was Guangzhou and Fujian, finding the most direct evidence for the trade between ancient China and Sri Lanka.
A bird's-eye view of the Alepiti ruins, the image comes from the Shanghai Museum
According to historical records, around the 5th century AD, the Chinese monk Faxian went to Sri Lanka to study Buddhism; In the 15th century, the Chinese navigator Zheng He also passed through and set foot on Sri Lankan land many times when he was on a mission abroad.
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epilogue
There is a precedent for national bankruptcy, iceland filed for bankruptcy in the 2008 economic crisis and spent three years out of the crisis. Although there is still a long way to go, I wish Sri Lanka an early exit from its predicament.
◎ The picture and text come from the "(Shanghai) Lecture: Sri Lanka's World Cultural Heritage" and other online materials, such as invasion and deletion.
©️ Prohibition of two changes 丨 theft
Finishing 丨 Jiang Jing Editor 丨 Li Tong