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. KEYWORDS: Myanmar, Burma, Bagan, Pagan, archaeology, excavation, earthenware, pottery, Pyu, Tircul, urbanism, radiocarbon, settlement, spatial, GIS.