The Polonnaruwa Museum (Sinhala: පොළොන්නරුව කෞතුකාගාරය), Sri Lanka is one of the Museums Administered by the Central Cultural Fund. It was established near the main sluice gate of the Parakrama Samudraya of Polonnaruva Ancient City.
History
The museum was established with the support of the Government of the Netherlands to exhibit the artefacts that were recovered through research carried out since 1981 by the Alahana Project of the Central Cultural Fund and to provide knowledge and understanding to visitors about the Polonnaruva World Heritage Site (Rambukwella, 2014). It was declared open to the public on 31 September 1998.
The museum building is said to have been first planned by Roland Silva and it was further developed by Messrs. L.A. Aditya and L.K. Karunaratna (Wikramagamage, 2004). The compound was designed on the instructions of Senaka Bandaranayaka (Wikramagamage, 2004).
The Museum
The museum has seven galleries preserving a collection of items discovered in ancient Polonnaruwa City (Rambukwella, 2014). Artefacts include terracotta and clay objects, Buddhas and Buddhist objects, Bodhisattva images, Hindu items, household and agricultural equipment, inscriptions and writing instruments, beads, bone remains, glass, brass, copper, bronze and metal objects, coins and coin moulds (Rambukwella, 2014).
See Also
#) Ancient Technology Museum, Polonnaruwa
References
1) Rambukwella, M.W.C.N.K., 2014. Heritage representation in culturally diverse societies: a case study of the Colombo National Museum in Sri Lanka (Doctoral dissertation, School of Museum Studies). pp.421-422.
2) Wikramagamage, C., 2004. Heritage of Rajarata: Major natural, cultural, and historic sites. Colombo. Central Bank of Sri Lanka. p.229.
