Moonstone At Anuradhapura. Photo and Text by Siri
Moonstones and Guardstones are generally found at entrances or at the bottom of stairways to temples, shrines, dagobas, and other important buildings. These are considered to be the most characteristic forms of classical Sinhala sculpture. Moonstone is a semi-circular slab of stone with richly carved bands of animals, lion, bull, elephant and horse in particular. A close inspection of these bands will reveal that each pose of each animal is slightly different to the previous pose, almost like the adjoining "cels" in a Disney cartoon.

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