School girl engraved her name on Sigiriya Mirror Wall, arrested

A school girl who allegedly has her name engraved on the Sigiriya Mirror Wall with a safety pin has been arrested by the police, last afternoon.

The 17-year-old girl who scrawled the Mirror Wall was spotted by an officer who leads to the arrest, the police said.

The girl has been identified as a resident of Batticaloa who was on an educational trip along with a group of students accompanied by three teachers.

A source from the Sigiriya Archaeological Police Unit told Ada Dernana that a ruling party politico from Batticaloa district had urged them to have the girl be released on police bail. “But the girl will be produced before the Dambulla Magistrate today, since we have no authority to grant police bail under terms of the Cultural Property act,” he added.

The Mirror Wall has verses dating from as early as the 8th century. People of all types wrote on the wall, on varying subjects such as love, irony, and experiences of all sorts. Further writing on the Mirror Wall now has been banned for the protection of old writings of the wall.

Prof. Senerat Paranavitana, an eminent Sri Lankan archaeologist, deciphered 685 verses written in the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries.