Bagan myanmar language
Regardless, in 2019 Bagan recently became a UNESCO World Heritage Site - 24 years after the military government first nominated it in 1995. Some preservationists have criticized the shoddy workmanship and historically inaccurate repair methods. Major repairs didn't begin for another 20 years since 1995, more than 1,300 structures have been either rebuilt or massively repaired. First there was a cloud of dust and then, like water cascading, down the sides came bricks, stones, and sand."Īt the time, the country was isolated from the rest of the world by its military dictatorship, and so the outside world wasn't aware of the damage until days later. "Then the pagodas went off, one after the other. "It was a loud roar like the sea," recalled one English archaeologist of the massive earthquake. An especially large quake in 1975 nearly decimated 94 temples all by itself. It's a wonder the ancient temples are still standing, especially since Bagan sits near the Sagaing Fault, a tectonically active area. The sacred landscape here reflects the devotion and merit of the early Buddhists that resided in the area. These include the remains of more than 10,000 religious monuments constructed during the peak of the Pagan Empire. Today, more than 2,200 temples stretch across the 26-square-mile plain of Old Bagan. In the present-day village of Bagan in central Myanmar (formerly Burma), ancient spires from 12th and 13th-century Buddhist temples still stretch skyward near the shores of the Irrawaddy River in Southeast Asia. It almost seems like time has stopped inside this former capital of the Pagan Kingdom.