The Origins of Bagan: New Dates and Old Inhabitants

Abstract

Bagan is a major early urban center in Myanmar (Burma). Hundreds of Buddhist monuments were built there between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries A.D. The dating of activities earlier than this has until recently not been supported by scientific evidence. Part of Otein Taung, a "pottery hill" in the middle of the urban complex, has now been radiocarbon dated between A.D. 650 and 830. A new survey of the spread of "Pyu" fingermarked bricks has located these cultural markers, widespread in Myanmar in the first millennium A.D. , in more than 50 buildings at Bagan. This spatial and dating evidence suggests that before Bagan became a historically recorded economic and military power, and a key ritual center, it was a substantial settlement contemporaneous with some of Myanmar's distinctive first millennium "Pyu" sites.

Earthenware From a Firing Site in Myanmar (Burma) Dates to More Than 4,500 Years Ago

“…It was used for the open-air firing of earthenware. Similar layers of charcoal, ash, potsherds and soil appeared in mounds we have excavated at Bagan, which date to the 9 th -14 th centuries AD (Hudson, Nyein Lwin et al 2001) and with communal village sites that are in use for firing earthenware in Burma today (Nealie 2003). This might suggest a long-term, continuing tradition of manufacture.…”

Smelting in the Shadow of the Iron Mountain: Preliminary Field Investigation of the Industrial Landscape around Phnom Dek, Cambodia (Ninth to Twentieth Centuries a.d.)

“…Recent research within the early historic period (from the fourth or fifth to fifteenth century a.d.) has greatly surpassed our knowledge of prehistoric iron production. Excavations in Myanmar (Hudson 2006(Hudson , 2012Hudson et al 2001), Malaysia (Mokhtar et al 2011), Laos ( Pryce, Chiemsisouraj, et al 2011), and Thailand (Suchitta 1983;Venunan 2011Venunan , 2016 have established a baseline understanding of dated furnace structures and compositional characteristics of individual technological systems. Landscape-scale surveys have yet to be completed to determine whether these sites were part of large industrial landscapes and whether they focused around specific mineral ore deposits.…”

Dating the City Wall, Fortifications, and the Palace Site at Pagan

“…4) that was located on a raised platform between the main wall and the moat. A number of these tubes, which are up to 90 cm long and 45 cm in diameter, have been excavated intact (or nearly so) within the walled city area, and in fragmentary form from Gtein Taung (a possible pottery production site east of the Sulamani pagoda-see Hudson et al 2001). They have a rolled rim at each end, and are undecorated.…”