Sri Lankan archaeologists have excavated 17 gold-plated Buddha statues from a UNESCO World Heritage site believed to have been a monastery more than 2,000 years ago, an official told AFP on Wednesday. The rare find on Tuesday came during excavations of a rampart of the Abhayagiri temple complex in Anuradhapura, an ancient capital in the island’s centre north. Project manager Thusitha Herath, of the government’s Central Cultural Fund, said this was the most significant discovery in the archaeologically protected area in more than three decades. “We have found artefacts before, but this is the first time we have seen such a large number of statues,” Herath told AFP from the excavation site, 210 kilometres north of Colombo. The 17 bronze statues plated in gold have features similar to artefacts from the seventh and eighth centuries, and are estimated to be about 1,200 to 1,300-years-old, Herath said. “We have sent these artefacts for further testing and we hope to be able to put them on public display within about a month,” he added. The statues were found buried at random within the Sacred City of Anuradhapura, which has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1982. Sri Lanka’s Central Cultural Fund has been carrying out excavations following the international recognition, which also imposed conservation responsibilities on the government. The area is known to have embraced a diverse mix of Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana doctrines of Buddhism, attracting scholars and pilgrims from China and India hundreds of years ago.
