Mangalagama Ambalama

The Mangalagama Ambalama is an old wayside rest in the village of Mangalagama in Kegalle District, Sri Lanka. The site can be reached by traveling along the Colombo - Kandy main road about 7.2 km distance from the Kegalle bus stand.

Ambalama

Ambalamas are traditional resting places built by locals to accommodate wayfarers who were traveling to distant places. The Ambalama at Mangalagama is believed to have been built in the 18th century (De Silva & Chandrasekara, 2009).

Structure

The Ambalama building is rectangular in shape has been built by erecting sixteen pillars (De Silva & Chandrasekara, 2009). The roof is paved with flat clay tiles and supported by the twelve and four pillars fixed on the ground in two concentric tiers. Connecting the outer twelve pillars, a short wall goes around the structure. The pillar capitals are made of wood and decorated with Pekada carvings (De Silva & Chandrasekara, 2009). The four sided roof with the elevated middle portion has a short ridge decorated with two clay pots. Some clay artifacts recovered from the Mangalagama Ambalama are presently on the display at the Archaeological Museum of Dedigama.

A protected monument

The Mangalagama Ambalama situated in Mangalagama village in the Divisional Secretary’s Division of Rambukkana is an archaeological protected monument, declared by a government gazette notification published on 15 March 1974.

References

1) De Silva, N.; Chandrasekara, D.P., 2009. Heritage Buildings of Sri Lanka. Colombo: The National Trust Sri Lanka, ISBN: 978-955-0093-01-4.  p.169.
2) The Gazette of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka: No: 103. 15 March 1974.

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This page was last updated on 27 October 2019