RANJITH SOYSA

A  colleague of mine, – keen student of historical archeological sites- who has recently visited Anuradhapura conveyed to me the depressing story how some of the monuments are maintained.

In most places, he had observed that the maintenance labor force use implements without any care or caution to the extremely valuable artifacts .

According to him the maintenance contractors use unskilled labor who attend to their work without any guidance He told me at the site of Eath Pokuna (Elephant Pond) which is a huge ancient water storage tank – 159 m long.53 m wide 10 m deep with a holding capacity of 75,000 cubic capacity – for ancient Abahaygiri Monastery, the contract laborers while clearing weeds in the pond  caused damage to the bricks and stones.

He was saddened by the callous manner in which historical places are vandalized by the unskilled maintenance labor.. He was also disheartened to witness many ancient tanks filled with weeds and fungi which again speaks volumes for the insensitive maintenance.

The department of archeology and other concerned authorities should open their eyes and implement a plan for the right preservation of our historical places.