Overview
Sri Lankan Dumbara Rata Kalala, or Dumbara mats, are traditional hand-made mats used as wall hangings, tapestries or cushion covers. The mats are made in two villages (Kalasirigama and Alokagama) by a community called kinnara that traditionally supplied ornamental mats to the royal palace as part of obligatory service to the crown and to ruling elites between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. Today, artisans weave the mats for local buyers and tourists. Dumbara mats are made with the fibres of the hana plant and decorated with symbolic motifs and designs. The plant fibres are separated by pressing the leaf against a log with a sharp-edged piece of wood to scrape away the fleshy parts. The fibres are then washed, sun-dried, combed and dyed using traditional herbal dyes made with natural materials from the Dumbara valley. The mat is created with a loom, and motifs and designs are...
This record is imported from the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage public dataset as discovery metadata. ARED has not independently verified community authority, access protocols or local naming beyond the source record.
Community and Authority
- Communities
- Sri Lanka
- Languages
- Not specified in UNESCO dataset
- Cultural territories
- Sri Lanka
- Countries
- Sri Lanka
How the System Works
Sri Lankan Dumbara Rata Kalala, or Dumbara mats, are traditional hand-made mats used as wall hangings, tapestries or cushion covers. The mats are made in two villages (Kalasirigama and Alokagama) by a community called kinnara that traditionally supplied ornamental mats to the royal palace as part of obligatory service to the crown and...
Sources and Evidence
Imported from UNESCO DataHub dataset ich001. Field-level provenance is retained in the record metadata.
Field-Level Provenance
- title
- UNESCO DataHub field title_en
- preferredTitle
- UNESCO DataHub field title_fr
- summary
- UNESCO DataHub field description_en
- type
- UNESCO DataHub fields type_of_element_en and type_acronym
- countries
- UNESCO DataHub field countries, ISO codes resolved with ISO-3166 regional metadata
- categories
- ARED category inference from UNESCO concepts_primary_names, concepts_secondary_names and title
- relationships
- UNESCO concepts_primary_names, concepts_secondary_names, type fields and World Heritage links
- sourceUrl
- UNESCO DataHub field http_url_en
- rights
- UNESCO DataHub dataset metadata license and license_url
Original Source Metadata
Why This Record Is Credible
This public record is connected to 1 source and has been labelled Source Supported. ARED separates evidence sources from cultural authority so users can see both provenance and review limits.
Cultural Access
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Relationships
Review and Corrections
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