Sigiriya

The 5th-century rock citadel at Sigiriya in Matale district, Sri Lanka — the brief capital (c.477-495 CE) of King Kashyapa I who built his palace on the 200-metre volcanic plug after killing his father Dhatusena and fleeing his brother Moggallana. The site combines a Hellenistic-plan citadel on the rock summit, extensive gardens (the oldest surviving landscaped gardens in Asia, with symmetrical fountain systems that still function during the monsoon), a 140-metre mirror wall carrying 1,500+ graffiti verses by medieval pilgrims (one of the largest surviving corpora of early Sinhala writing), and the famous 500-plus apsara frescoes on the western rock face. After Moggallana defeated Kashyapa in 495, Sigiriya became a Buddhist monastery until the 14th century. UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1982.