Many people believe that Sri Lanka’s lion mountain, Sigiriya, should take its place as the eighth wonder of the world.

Sigiriya is an ancient palace built on top of a sheer rock and surrounded by ramparts, moats and gardens. It is one of the best-preserved cities from the first millennium in South Asia and in 1982, UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site.

In 447 AD, Sri Lanka’s ruling king was walled up alive by his son, Kasyapa, who stole the throne from the rightful heir, his brother Mogallana.

In order to escape Mogallana’s vengeance, Kasyapa constructed a palace on top of the rock, which was a good lookout point and could easily be defended.

But in 495, Mogallana returned with an army and Kasyapa descended from his lofty hideout to meet him in battle. He was defeated and committed suicide, and Sigiriya was turned into a monastery.

Sigiriya is approached over a moat that encloses an elaborate water garden containing one of the world’s most sophisticated hydraulic technologies.

Visitors enter the rock through a stone stairway guarded by two huge lion’s paws – all that remain of the entire stone carving, which give an idea of the scale of the whole figure.

Halfway up, you come to the mirror wall – so named because the lime plaster was so highly polished that it had reflected the paintings on the opposite rock wall. Today, the shine can still be seen.

On the wall, visitors from an ancient time have written graffiti in poem form, most of it dedicated to the Sigiriya Maidens, whose paintings can be seen further up. Nearly 1,500 neat messages have been deciphered, some more than 10 centuries old.

The most famous feature of the rock, however, is the surviving frescoes of the beautiful women, still glowing with colour. Some say they are heavenly maidens while others think they are women of the king’s court. No one knows who painted them but the Maidens testify to a highly advanced civilisation at a time when Europe was in the Dark Ages.

A stairway has been attached to the side of the rock to allow access to the summit, enabling visitors to stroll around the ruins of the palace and admire the panoramic views.

Two water tanks, used for bathing and drinking, still fill with rainwater, but in Kasyapa’s day a sophisticated pumping system was used to fill the tanks from a lake at the foot of the rock.