When Pots Whisper: Ceramics, Society & Life in a Medieval Burmese Palace | SOAS University of London
Channel: SOAS University of London
Date: 19/03/2020

'When Pots Whisper: Ceramics, Society, and Life in a Medieval Burmese Palace' was a seminar presented by Goh Geok Yian on the 6th of March 2020. Find out more at http://bit.ly/2IVaqOq

Myanmar archaeologists have worked at the site of the Anawrahta-Kyanzittha palaces (AKP) for almost 30 years. Few palaces have been excavated in Southeast Asia, so the study of the AKP site can shed significant light on our understanding of both ancient Myanmar and ancient palaces in the entire region. Burmese archaeologists have unearthed a huge quantity of evidence which supports the argument that an elite group inhabited the site, in all probability early rulers of the Bagan kingdom. The most convincing evidence comprises foundations of very large buildings, such as bricks, wood, and ceramic tiles. Artifacts recovered mainly consist of a wide variety of ceramics, votive tablets and statuary, enabling us to use them to draw inferences about daily life in the palaces.

The Myanmar-Singapore Archaeological Training Project (MSATP), a joint effort between Myanmar and Singapore funded by Singapore Ministry of Education grants, focuses on analysis of ceramics and secondarily on other materials, as well as capacity building of our Burmese counterparts for whom ceramic studies are a new realm. The aim of the project is to reconstruct activities conducted in the palaces and possible socio-economic and religious changes over a period of three centuries. This presentation provides an update on research at Bagan with a focus on a project the author and her co-investigators have been undertaking since 2014. In the long term, this research should expand to provide important insights into medieval Burmese urbanism.