Ibbankatuwa Megalithic Cemetery

Ibbankatuwa Megalithic Cemetery

Ibbankatuwa Megalithic Cemetery , also known as Ibbankatuwa Proto-historic Burial Site (Sinhala:ඉබ්බන්කටුව මෙගලිතික සුසාන), is an ancient burial site situated south of Dambulu Oya Reservoir in Dambulla in Matale District, Sri Lanka. Extended in an area of about 13 hectares, the site comprises a large number of burials in cists made of stone slabs dating to the 7th century B.C. The cemetery is considered the biggest and the best-preserved proto-historic burial site in the country. The Cemetery The cemetery site is located on the left bank of the Dambulu Oya, a tributary of Kala Oya . It generally consists of stone cist-type burial graves of the Megalithic tradition. The burial chambers are square and rectangular in shape and have been constructed by placing granite slabs vertically erected (Karunaratne, 2010). Several chambers were covered with capstones and some of them were visible on the surface even before the excavations. In 1984, surface explorations performed at the site exposed a …