Bob Hudson
Archaeology Department, University of Sydney, Australia
Archaeology Department, University of Sydney, Australia
Recent
archaeological excavations and surveys at the old Arakanese sites of
Dhanyawadi, Vesali and Mrauk-U raise new issues about each. It appears
that Dhanyawadi is not the eccentric shape portrayed in early
archaeological plans, but an oval site with some notable similarities to
the walled Pyu sites of Upper Myanmar. Vesali shares one of these
characteristics, an inward-curving brick gate. A radiocarbon date, the
first for Vesali, intriguingly places another city gate in the 13th
cenhtry AD. A review of the huge earth banks that surround Mrauk-U
suggests that the popular notion that these were defensive may be a
romanticised interpretation of what was essentially a water management
system.
Location
The
early polities of Arakan were located in the valleys of the Kaladan and
Lemro Rivers. While some traditional accounts locate early
settlements, "royal capitals", as far north as the Kyaukpandaung plateau
(Tun Shwe Khiae 1992: 20-21) the available evidence points to the
alluvial lowlands,
Satellite
imagery (Figure 1) shows how restricted the area available for
irrigated rice agriculture was. The old settlements occupy a strip of
land that is only between 15 and 35 kilometres wide, and perhaps 60
kilometres from north to south. To the north, west and east are hills,
and to the south the combined deltas of the two rivers meet the sea.
Dhanyawadi
There
are traditional claims in Arakan of royal capitals dating back to 3000
BC (Tun Shwe Khine 1992: 20). However the historical record begins with
the c. AD 729 Anacandra inscription which describes how the founding
king of the Candra Dynasty, Dvancandra (c. 370-425 AD), "built a city
adorned by surrounding walls and a moat" (Johnston 1944; Gutman 1976:
63, Vol I). This is Dhanyawadi, whose Gupta-period sculptures point to
the 5th century AD (Gutman 2001: 29). It is the home of the Mahamuni
shrine, an important pilgrimage site for Buddhists (Forchhammer 1892;
Tun Shwe Khine 1994). The shrine is pretty much in the geographical
centre of an oval outer wall which encloses an area of 5.6 square
kilometres. Southwest of the shrine is a relatively square enclosed
area, with another square series of walls inside it (Figure 2).
These
two sets of inner walls are generally interpreted as a palace. Apart
from the walls themselves, and a couple of small brick structures, there
are few brick foundations evident, suggesting that if this area
enclosed an elite centre, then the inhabitants must have lived mainly in
wooden structures built directly on the ground. Excavations on the
eastern side show the walls curving inward to form a corridor, providing
a narrow entranceway to the complex. These walls,like the outer city
walls, are several metres thick, faced with brick, and filled with
rubble (Kyaw Zan 2004).
One
thing that immediately strikes the observer on seeing the curved brick
gate is the similarity with curved brick corridor gates that have been
excavated at Halin, Beikthano and Sriksetra (Aung Myint 1998). We seem
to have no written information from ancient times to tell us just why
the gates were built in this shape. Was their function defence against
enemies, administrative (perhaps for the collection of taxes as people
went through- some of the Upper Burma gates had niches that could have
housed guards or officials) or cultural, to ensure that only members of
the community that owned the walled city could enter? Until now, this
kind of entranceway had appeared unique to First Miliennium AD Upper
Myanmar, but it now seems that the ancient architects must have
exchanged a few ideas across the Arakan Yoma.
Several
important features came to light during field survey in 2005. The
author, U Nyein Lwin, of the Archaeology Department in Mrauk-U and U
Maung Maung Than, a staff member of the Mahamuni museum who was raised
in the local area, undertook a program of "ground-truthing", directly
checking features that had previously been mapped or detected from
aerial photos or satellite imagery. A key discovery was that the huge
earth banks to the southeast of the Mahamuni, which have appeared on
maps as part of the outer city wall, form quite a separate feature, They
very likely became incorporated into the archaeological plan due to a
misinterpretation of aerial photographs (Thin Kyi 1970) and were
cheerfully accepted as giving the city an inexplicably eccentric outline
by subsequent scholars, including the author (Gutman & Hudson 2004:
162). However inspection on the ground shows that there are brick
remains in a field between the earth banks which form a continuous line
with brick walls that run under the earthworks (Figure 2). The earth
bank, sometimes known as the "gold and silver road", has more than one
folk tale attached to it. In one story, it was a twin road to Mrauk-U.
In another, it was an artificial lake built by rival royals to hold boat
races. Its walls are now breached, and crops are grown on its floor.
Other
finds fiom the ground survey include a curved brick gate on the outer
east wall and a stone quarry, characterised by the remains of drill
holes in the grey sandstone, at Kyauktalon, beyond the west wall. The
early sculptures of Dhanyawadi and Vesali largely employ red sandstone,
so the Kyauktalon quarry cannot be claimed as a source for these
artworks. Outside the southern part of the outer wail we located a
cluster of brick and/or stone platforms, typically about 8 metres
square. They appear as low mounds on the ground. Many are preserved as
field corners, presumably too hard to plough and too dense to make it
worth the effort of removing the brick or stone. Perhaps they are
religious monuments or graves. Careful excavation of one or two of them
may provide valuable new information.
Vesali
Art
history and numismatic studies place Vesali between perhaps the 6th and
10th centuries AD (Nyunt Han 1984; Gutman 2001: 41). It is enclosed by a
brick wall, with an area of 6.2 square kilometres. Excavations in the
1980s revealed several brick buildings.
Regular
finds of stone and bronze artifacts were noted then (Nyunt Han 1984)
and since (Shwe Zan 1995). An inner walled area, known as the “palace
site", is obscured by the present village of Wethali, although brick
remains are widely seen in the village pathways and roads. Recent
excavations have unearthed a curved brick gateway on the northern side
of the outer wall, which can be seen where the road to Dhanyawadi
crosses the wall (Figure 3, VSL 8).
This
curved gate appears to have been overbuilt by later structures (Kyi
Khin 2004), suggesting long-term use of the site. In the northwest
corner, a different kind of gate was excavated, a gap in the wall with a
large timber post set at each side (VSL 6). One of these posts has been
radiocarbon dated to the period between AD 1260-1400 at 95.4%
probability (sample OZH970, 670~40 BP, Australian Nuclear Science and
Technology Organisation 2005). We should not rush to judgement on the
basis of a single radiocarbon date, but at face value, the result
suggests we should at least not discount some kind of construction
activity in a period that had previously been considered to be well
after the time the city was occupied. Vesali has been called in the
Arakanese chronicles the "city of stone stairs" (Gutman 1976: 21; Nyunt
Han 1984). Local people point out a section of the bank of the Rann
Chaung about 500 metres fiom VSL 6 where they say stonework has been
seen, but none is visible today.
Mrauk-U
The
Mrauk-U period went from the 15th to 18th centuries AD, and seems to
have been preceded by settlement activity along the Lemro River to the
east in several centres including Sambawak/Pyinsa, Parein, Hkrit and
Launggret (Harvey 1925: 137-149, 370-371; Thin Kyi 1970; the Lemro sites
were recently re-surveyed by Berliet 2004: 234-239). A characteristic
view of Mrauk-U is that the earth banks that surround particularly the
eastern part of the city were constructed for defence, a maze
"calculated to baffle any enemy", with the capacity for the waters of
the town's reservoirs to be let loose to drown invaders (Collis 1923:
246). A new look at these earth banks, using maps (Burma One Inch 84
H/2), aerial photographs (thanks to Dr Elizabeth Moore for supplying a
rare copy of a World War II aerial photo of Mrauk-U from the
Williams-Hunt Collection at SOAS) and satellite imagery (LandSat 2000
and IKONOS 1 metre) suggests rather erratic planning if defence was the
main aim (Figure 4).
The earth banks of Mrauk-u cover an area of more than 20 square
kilometres. They extend more than 6 kilometres to the northeast of the
citadel, as far as the Lemro River. However to the southeast, they are
effectively on the edge of the city, except for banks fionting low hills
that encircle an alluvial plain. It does not really look like a
militarily viable fortification. There seems to be at least one large
gap through which invaders could comfortably march, along a stream
between the northern and southern groups of earth banks and past the
Koe-thaung and Pizi-taung pagodas (Figure 4). There is also the question
of the structurally similar earthworks at Dhanyawadi. It is difficult
to attribute a defensive function to the Dhanyawadi banks, which form a
single reservoir backing on to a hillside catchment area (Figure 2). We
might look to water management as a more likely reason for the
construction of the earthworks at both sites, to keep the saline water
firom the surrounding tidal rivers and creeks at bay and permit rice
irrigation. The Mrauk-U kings are described as building extensive bunds
for water retention as far as the Lemro River in the mid-15th century
(Smart 1917: 66-67).
It
must be admitted that in the case of an attack, the complex systenl of
banks and tanks would have favoured the locals rather than the
intruders. Fortified lookout posts, some with gun ports, remain on the
hills around the town (Tun Shwe Khine 1992; Shwe Zan 1995). These
fortifications, along with the walls, gates and different kinds of earth
banks, are given individual names in the local tradition, a tradition
which considers the earth banks to be fundamentally defensive
(Department of Archaeology n.d.). Histories describe how King Minbin, in
the16th century, opened the sluices of the reservoirs to hold back
Burmese/Peguan invaders (Harvey 1925: 140, 158). However wars are
irregular occurrences, while agriculture is constant.The dramatic notion
of drowningone's enemies by flooding the city's defences, a story told
also of Beikthano (ASB 1905-06: 7), may be more appealing than the
notion of a hydraulic engineering project, but the original construction
of the earth banks should be seen as a creative approach to a difficult
problem of water management that helped bring to Mrauk-u the prosperity
that made it attractive over the years to adventurers from both inside
and outside the society.This is not to suggest that the banks may not
have been useful in the defence of the city,rather that any defensive
advantage they may have given would have been the fortunate consequence
of earIier decisions regarding water management.
References
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# Maps are by the author and this research is supported by a grant and postdoctoral Fellowship from Australian ResearchCouncil.
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