Rock Art And Artisans In The Lemro Valley, Arakan, Myanmar

  • Uploaded by: ေက်ာက္ၿဖဴသားေခ်
  • 0
  • 0
  • June 2020
  • PDF

This document was uploaded by user and they confirmed that they have the permission to share it. If you are author or own the copyright of this book, please report to us by using this DMCA report form. Report DMCA


Overview

Download & View Rock Art And Artisans In The Lemro Valley, Arakan, Myanmar as PDF for free.

More details

  • Words: 5,288
  • Pages: 20
Pamela Gutman1 , Bob Hudson2 , Kyaw Minn Htin3 & Kyaw Tun Aung4 This is a story that will appeal to all scholars involved with the interpretation of rock art. Figures depicted on rock surfaces in jungle terrain patrolled by soldier ants were thought in the nineteenth century to record an otherwise unknown early episode of invasion and resistance – and were widely published as such. A recent survey by a Myanmar-Australian team has made more correct records of the earlier forms and now offers fresh interpretations: the carvings are due to fifteenthnineteenth century artisans working at quarries producing objects for the town of Mrauk-U, and they evoke local creatures and architectural echoes of the town and temples on which they worked. Keywords: Myanmar, Burma, Arakan, political images, post-medieval, rock art

Introduction Arakan (Figure 1) is the English name for the state of Rakhine, on the Bay of Bengal coast of the Union of Myanmar (formerly Burma). Arakanese is a dialect of Burmese, and uses Burmese script. The early polities were located in the valleys and floodplains of the Kaladan and Lemro Rivers, an area that today is under rice agriculture (Hudson 2005). King Anacandra’s inscription of c . AD 729 describes how the founding king of the First Candra Dynasty, Dvancandra (c . AD 370-425), built ‘a city adorned by surrounding walls and a moat’ (Johnston 1944). This has become identified as Dhanyawadi, a 5.6km2 brick-walled site which is the home of the fifth-century Mahamuni shrine. Dhanyawadi was a pilgrimage centre in the fifteenth-eighteenth century Mrauk-U period. Arakanese Buddhists believe that an image of Gautama Buddha previously housed in this building was cast during his lifetime when he had visited Arakan, made certain prophecies and indicated hundreds of sites where relics of his various lives would be found. This renowned and powerful image was removed to Mandalay following the Burmese conquest of Arakan in the late eighteenth century (Forchhammer 1892; Tun Shwe Khine 1994; Gutman 2001: 33; Leider 2005). Art history and numismatic studies place another walled city of 6.2km2 , Vesali, between about the sixth and tenth centuries AD (Gutman 1976; Nyunt Han 1984; Gutman 1 2 3 4

Department of Art History and Theory, University of Sydney, Australia Archaeology Department, University of Sydney, Australia & Field School of Archaeology, Pyay, Myanmar Yangon University, Myanmar Archaeology Department, Mrauk-U, Myanmar (retired)

Received: 19 September 2006; Revised: 2 January 2007; Accepted: 8 March 2007 antiquity 81 (2007): 655–674

655

Research

Rock art and artisans in the Lemro Valley, Arakan, Myanmar

Rock art and artisans in the Lemro Valley, Arakan, Myanmar

Figure 1. Rakhine (Arakan) State, Myanmar, in regional context.

2001: 41), although a fourteenth-century radiocarbon date from a city gatepost suggests intermittent reoccupation (Hudson 2005). The walled cities were not the only focus of cultural activity. Selagiri hill, a few kilometres west of Dhanyawadi on the Kaladan river, has yielded stone sculptures and inscriptions dating 656

from the sixth to sixteenth centuries (Forchhammer 1892: 14; Gutman 1998). A Sanskrit inscription of the ye dharmma, the ‘Buddhist creed’, which we identify palaeographically as belonging to the sixth-seventh century AD, was found in 2001 on the top of Padaw hill and is now in the custody of a local monastery. This find suggests that the region from Selagiri to Padaw (Figure 2) was occupied from the first millennium AD by people producing Indic artefacts. Between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries, smaller walled settlements were built along the Lemro River at Sambawak/Pyinsa, Parein, Hkrit, Toungoo Neyinzara and Launggret (Figure 2), though erosion has since destroyed much of the evidence. These were polities with political and cultural links to Bagan, the dominant power up until the fourteenth century in Burma, and religious links to the Theravada Buddhists of Sri Lanka (Harvey 1925: 137-49, 370-71; Thin Kyi 1970; Gutman 2001: 14; the Lemro sites were recently re-surveyed by Berliet 2004: 234-39). Mrauk-U (Figure 2), which appears on early maps as Myohaung, literally ‘old city’, was home to dynasties that ruled from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries. Described by a seventeenth-century visitor as ‘a second Venice’, the Arakanese capital sat amid streams, canals, reservoirs, earthworks, stone walls and low hills. Historians broadly ascribe three phases to the Mrauk-U era. The ‘early period’ begins with the foundation of Mrauk-U around 1430. The city was recorded as having been tributary to the sultanate of Bengal until the 1530s when the expansionist King Man Pa conquered Chittagong. The ‘middle period’ runs from Man Pa to a dynastic break in 1638. The rulers aligned themselves with the Portuguese, who provided armaments and assisted in the design of fortifications. This was the peak period for construction of defences and religious monuments, the latter sometimes decorated with stone relief sculpture. A mercenary army and a slaving and trading fleet brought political and economic power. Arakan took East Bengal, resisted a Burmese invasion, and conquered the Burmese capital at Pegu. The kingdom struggled against Portuguese freebooters in the early seventeenth century, but enjoyed an economic boom supplying slaves and rice to the Dutch from the 1630s until the 1660s, when the Dutch saw it as more advantageous to align themselves with the Mughals. In the ‘late period’ Arakan lost a key economic resource, the coastal port of Chittagong, as the Mughals re-established dominance over Bengal. The Arakanese resorted to piracy to make up the economic shortfall. Local rebellions brought instability. Mrauk-U was shaken by an earthquake which caused a tsunami in the Bay of Bengal in 1762. In 1784 the Burmese invaded and removed the Mahamuni image. In 1825 the British took Arakan and moved the capital to Akyab (Sittwe) at the mouth of the Kaladan River (Oldham 1883; Charney 1998; Gutman 2001; Leider 2002; van Galen 2002).

Rock art Prehistoric rock art is known in Burma at only one site, Padah-lin, which features wall paintings in a context that goes back 13 000 years (Aung Thaw 1971). Recently, several hundred pecked and abraded cupules were discovered in one of the caves at Padah-lin, the first such ancient stoneworking to be documented in mainland Southeast Asia (Tac¸on 657

Research

Pamela Gutman et al.

Rock art and artisans in the Lemro Valley, Arakan, Myanmar

Figure 2. Sites mentioned in the text, shown over a LandSat image.

658

Research

Pamela Gutman et al.

Figure 3. Pyaingdet-taung. Bird and part of human face, original petroglyph.

et al. 2004). Experience in neighbouring countries such as Thailand, which has dozens of ancient painted or engraved rockshelters and caves (Srisuchat 1990), suggests that further investigation might reveal more such sites in Burma. However, the Arakanese sites under discussion here are not prehistoric, but relate, as we will demonstrate, to a relatively recent urban period. Pyaingdet-taung (pendulous cheekflesh relic hill) and Padaw (noble cheek relic) are open sites, with pictures incised on boulders or rock faces. They are among the above-mentioned sites in Arakan with which relics of the Buddha are associated. The Pyaingdet-taung petroglyphs (E 93.271147˚ N 20.586134˚) are 40m below the peak of a 190m high hill. The Padaw site (E 93.226023˚ N 20.447613˚) is at the foot of a hill of similar elevation.

Survey methods The location of the two petroglyph sites was recorded with GPS, and the sites and each image or group of images photographed digitally (Figure 3). The rocks were sprayed with water for a second series of photographs. Rubbings were made by pressing damp handmade ‘Shan’ paper on to the incised rocks and rolling printers’ ink over the surface. This is the standard technique used by the Myanmar Archaeology Department in recording incised stone inscriptions. The rubbings were photographed with a 10cm scale in place both on the rocks and afterwards, when the paper had been removed and dried. The digital photographs 659

Rock art and artisans in the Lemro Valley, Arakan, Myanmar

were inverted to change the white outlines of the rubbing grooves to black lines, and the extraneous shading was edited out. The result is scale-accurate line-art. The rubbings and digital photographs of each scene, plus direct inspection of the originals in the field, were used to confirm the accuracy of the line drawings.

Pyaingdet-taung The Pyaingdet-taung petroglyphs are on a steep hillside. Some of the images are several metres above the present ground level and can only be reached by climbing up trees and vines. The pictures may have been deliberately Figure 4. Pyaingdet-taung. Elephants, fish, bird (total inscribed in this relatively inaccessible position, height of group: 72cm). or else erosion, exacerbated by the cutting of a path below the rocks for access to the hilltop, may have lowered the ground level. Two elephants and what may be at least one more faded or incomplete elephant share a rock surface with a fish and a bird, the latter at right angles to the larger figures (Figure 4). Another elephant may have some overdrawing (Figure 5). On another rockface there is a bird with a long curved beak, an elephant, a human figure apparently holding a sword and buckler, Figure 5. Pyaingdet-taung. Elephant (height: 18cm). and a second human figure behind an elephant. If the humans, elephant and bird are meant to be viewed as a group, their sizes are out of proportion (Figure 6). Tucked away on the side of this rock, at right angles to the main rockface, is a running horse (Figure 7).

Pyaingdet-taung pagoda and inscriptions On the crest of the hill is a hemispheric stupa (Figure 8). In a modern shelter beside the stupa there are two seated Buddha images, much restored, in the Lemro style (Gutman 2001: 62-72). There is no way to tell whether these are in their original position, which would place the site in the eleventh-fifteenth-century period, or whether they have been transported there more recently. We identify a stone relief of two human figures, perhaps representing donors to the pagoda (Figure 9), as nineteenth-century on the basis of their costume. A stone footprint of the Buddha in the shelter bears an inscription dated after the Burmese invasion: 660

Myanmar Era 1248 (AD 1880), on the full moon day of the month of Tabaung (the 12th month of the Myanmar calendar) has seen the sculpting of the sacred footprint completed. The donor Pho Khaing and his wife. This merit [should lead to] Nibbana. The celestial and human beings should rejoice and say ‘well done’.

Figure 6. Pyaingdet-taung. Elephant, human figures and bird (total height of group: 45cm).

Along the ridge on which the shrine sits there is an unfinished 1.8m diameter circular stone pedestal with chipped sides. There are also several rocks with lines of holes forming semicircles along the face of the rock, indicating that they had been split. Lines of holes drilled in other rocks indicate preparation for splitting. This is characteristic evidence of quarrying. Another inscription, carved in situ on a rock 40m from the pagoda, and somewhat weathered, belongs palaeographically to the eighteenth century or later, when Burmese letters acquired a generally rounded form that remains in use today. Only fragments of the inscription can be read: Saya ‘teacher’ May Say (or May Nga Sa) . . . kan bhˆa nhaik ‘at a lake’ [possibly a village name] . . . yu nga bhabh (a verb indicating the action of doing something). . . Ma (female honorific) Khatta ‘land-lily flower’ Ngay ‘young’.

Figure 7. Pyaingdet-taung. Horse (height: 12cm).

At a corner of this inscription is a head surmounted with an ornate headdress (Figure 10), which is at 90◦ to the script rather than aligned with it. Similar headgear is associated with Burmese officials of the seventeenth-nineteenth centuries (Green 2002: 74-75).

Padaw: from scholarly impression to nationalist expression The rock incisions at Padaw became known following a survey of Arakan by Emanuel Forchhammer, who was Government Archaeologist between 1882 and 1890. He identified ‘numerous tanks, embankments, traces of buildings and other vestiges’ near Padaw as the site of an early sixteenth-century settlement, Sigunmyo. A badly worn rock-cut inscription appeared to have a date of Sakkaraj (the Burmese era) 886, or AD 1524. The ‘Forchhammer’ pictures were 3km from the 1524 inscription, occupying about 30m of hillside. He 661

Research

Pamela Gutman et al.

Rock art and artisans in the Lemro Valley, Arakan, Myanmar

Figure 8. Pyaingdet-taung pagoda.

mentioned the difficulty of sketching them in the jungle which was home to a ‘fearful pest’, the soldier ant, and noted the lack of any local legends about the images. He suggested that the pictures told the story of an invader who arrived by boat, conquered and oppressed the natives, but was eventually overthrown and ran away (Forchhammer 1892: 53-4, Plates 39 & 40). This interpretation became accepted as fact, and was reprinted word for word in official publications (Smart 1917: 75-8). Photocopies of Forchhammer’s 1892 report were distributed to Burmese scholars in the 1970s, as a result of the enthusiasm of the then Director-General of Higher Education, U San Tha Aung, who was himself Arakanese. The archaeologist Myint Aung took up Forchhammer’s theme of resistance to an invader, placing it in a nationalist political context. He suggested that Forchhammer may have underplayed the story for fear of offending the government of the time, which was dealing with anti-colonialist insurgents (Myint Aung 1979). Forchhammer’s narrative, with its potential for grounding nationalism in history, has been enthusiastically revisited by several other academic and popular authors (Min Thein Zan 1997; Than Tun 1999; Ni Min Shin 2001).

Padaw: comparison and analysis Using Forchhammer’s numbering for the pictures, his narrative-based analysis, directly quoted from his report (Forchhammer 1892), can be compared with the digital images 662

Research

Pamela Gutman et al.

Figure 9. Pyaingdet-taung pagoda. Buddha images and human figures.

663

Rock art and artisans in the Lemro Valley, Arakan, Myanmar

from the new survey to provide a revised description and a more individual analysis of each picture. Forchhammer 1 (Figure 11): ‘A ship sailing due west toward the mountain’. Revision: This style of boat can be seen plying the local waterways today, under oars, sail or engine. The pavilion is standard equipment on most boats larger than a canoe. The tillerman sits under it. Similar boat shapes appear in the AD 1536 Shittaung temple at Mrauk-U, where six tiers of more than 1000 pieces of stone relief sculpture depict scenes from Buddha’s previous lives, including his existences as birds or animals, as well as mythical, historical and cultural scenes (Shwe Zan 1995: 37-9; Gutman 2001: 94-105).

Figure 10. Pyaingdet-taung. Head with crown and ear ornament, associated with inscription (height: 18cm).

Forchhammer 2 (Figure 13): ‘Strangers step on shore. The natives oppose them. They come, however, to an agreement, which is expressed by pressing thumb against thumb, the little finger against the little finger, the knuckles of the three other fingers meeting each other’.

Revision: The complex gesture of agreement or amity suggested by Forchhammer is not the custom in Arakan. This picture seems to represent a physical contest. The rubbing shows the figures standing toe to toe, apparently pulling on something. Pairs of figures in the Shittaung are shown in this pose, at times tugging on a ring, with their garments gathered up in front and tied behind the waist (Figure 12). Arakanese scholars identify these figures in the Shittaung

Figure 11. Padaw. Forchhammer 1 (left) and 2005 digital image (right). Height: 37cm.

664

Research

Pamela Gutman et al.

Figure 12. Shittaung temple, Mrauk-U. Pairs of individuals in contests of strength.

665

Rock art and artisans in the Lemro Valley, Arakan, Myanmar

Figure 13. Padaw. Forchhammer 2 (left) and 2005 digital image (right). Height: 33cm.

Figure 14. Padaw. Forchhammer 3 (left) and 2005 digital image (right). Height: 45cm.

as traditional kyun wrestlers, who are still seen at fairs and festivals in Arakan (Shwe Zan 1995: 38). Forchhammer 3 (Figure 14): ‘The stranger becomes violent and oppressive. With his knee on the breast of the prostrate native he has taken hold of the latter’s head with one hand and swings a sword or dah in the other’. Revision: The figure is holding a small circular shield in one hand and probably a sword in the other. Similar figures are seen in the Mrauk-U period, including on the walls of the Shittaung (Figure 15). The headdress or hairstyle seems ornate, but it is too badly damaged to be identified further. 666

Research

Pamela Gutman et al.

Figure 15. Shittaung temple, Mrauk-u. Man with sword and shield.

Forchhammer 4 (Figure 16): ‘The stranger has cut off the head of his victim and is dancing with exultation’. Revision: Again, there is no head or body. The individual holds an unornamented, round shield-like object in one hand and probably a slightly curved sword in the other. Both these 667

Rock art and artisans in the Lemro Valley, Arakan, Myanmar

Figure 16. Padaw. Forchhammer 4 (left) and 2005 digital image (right). Height: 40cm.

Figure 17. Padaw. Forchhammer 5 (left) and 2005 digital image (right). Height: 100cm.

swordsmen (Figures 14 and 16) hold the shield in the right hand and the sword in the left, as does the swordsman at Pyaingdet-taung (Figure 5). Similar figures in reliefs at the Shittaung and other pagodas invariably hold the sword in the right hand. The left-handed swordsmen at both petroglyph sites are a curious coincidence. Forchhammer 5 (Figure 17): The slope of the stone ‘is intended to represent a hill range’. ‘The stranger is in exclusive possession of the eastern side’. ‘The native was driven across the hill and alights on tigers and elephants, with whom he has to share his new home; he is represented as having fallen full length upon the back of what appears to be an elephant’. Revision: The western face of the rock picture contains several images that are partly drawn over each other. There is what may be a bird, a human face with elongated ears and a 668

topknot or headdress, and the front part of an elephant. The elephant faces left as an observer looks at the face of the stone. This convention is shared with the elephant pictures at Pyaingdet-taung. The ‘eastern’ side of the stone features an armless body, with minimal facial features drawn. The figure does not wear a loincloth as Forchhammer sketched it. The original portrayal of the lower trunk could perhaps be interpreted as female genitalia, with Forchhammer’s version more a reflection of nineteenth-century sensibilities than poor draftsmanship. Forchhammer 6 (Figure 18: this picture could not be located during the recent survey): ‘ The ship of the intruder. Above it are two waving lines, which probably should intimate that the vessel of the enemy has been sunk to the bottom of the river or sea; the natives recover courage’. Forchhammer 7 (Figure 19): ‘The naked, emaciated figure of the ejected aborigin stands by a tree in the attitude of making an oath (most of the uncivilized tribes in Burma swear to this day by a particular tree); the trunk has two eyes Figure 18. Padaw. Forchhammer 6. and the three additional lines above the tree may indicate the number of kindred tribes who entered into a solemn contract to attack and eject the intruder, whose main strength lay in his ship, of which, however, he was now deprived’. Revision: The figure with one hand on his chest and the other raised could be taking an oath if he were a westerner. But while mindful of the proviso that absence of evidence is not much

Figure 19. Padaw. Forchhammer 7 (left) and 2005 digital image (right). Height: 75cm.

669

Research

Pamela Gutman et al.

Rock art and artisans in the Lemro Valley, Arakan, Myanmar

evidence at all, we can find no ethnographic support for the notion of tribal people in this region swearing oaths with this gesture, or by a tree. The rectangular figure on the right has eyes, five fingers and toes, and possibly a penis. It may be a spirit figure. In Arakan, spirits known as nats are believed to inhabit trees or other natural sites. There are widespread cults devoted to placating them. Forchhammer 8 (Figure 20): ‘The eighth rock depicts the stranger in the act of departing in undignified hurry. His right hand holds a stout walking stick, the left hand a tiny bundle of ‘free luggage’, which will not impede his swift journey to the south; he is scantily dressed, a strip of cloth round the loins being his only vestment; the hair hangs down over the back of the head and the shoulder in a single plait, tied at the end with a string; flying arrows and stones bless his departure’. Revision: No projectiles were apparent when this picture was examined in the field. The figure seems to be wearing a turban. He has a decorative pendant in his elongated ear. He is standing, perhaps lounging on a staff, not walking or running as in the Forchhammer sketch. The bag of loot/luggage looks more like a piece of rope or cloth. The garment appears to reach from waist to knee, and is not as scanty as Forchhammer imagined. The groin may have been vandalised, or the stone may have spalled. One feature Forchhammer noticed and sketched was the left eye shown as an s-shaped line, a very creative way for the stone carver to deal with showing the figure in three-quarter face.

Padaw: the narrative is rejected Forchammer’s interpretation of the rock pictures can be rejected on the basis both of their position and their content. His claim that ‘the position of the rocks has evidently been selected with the aim to give the proper sequence to the story which the figures cut upon them record in a language which cannot be misinterpreted’ (Forchhammer 1892: 53) does not stand up, at least given the present location of the stones. They are spread along the foot of Figure 20. Padaw. Forchhammer 8 (left) and 2005 the hill over a space of 30m, in the order, from digital image (right). Height: 87cm. south to north, 8, 7, 1, 4, 2, 3, 5 (Figure 21). There is always the possibility that some may have been moved since Forchhammer’s time, but most of them are quite large. Some of the contextual elements of his narrative, in the light of the more accurate drawings, are no longer tenable. Nobody shook hands (Figure 12) and nobody was decapitated (Figures 14 and 16). The combative figures and the swordsmen are stock characters in the art of Mrauk-U, seen on elaborately carved Buddha thrones (Shwe Zan 1995: 119) as well as in the Shittaung reliefs discussed above. Forchhammer’s fleeing figure of the stranger (Figure 20) is shown by the revised imagery to be lounging on his staff, not running. It might also be suggested that in a narrative involving the same main character, the figure of the hero should be consistent 670

from the beginning to the end. Forchhammer’s ‘hero’ changes hats, clothes and even art styles. These are individual images, linked spatially but not thematically. There is irony in the ongoing acceptance of Forchhammer’s narrative in a nation that since independence in 1948 has vigorously rebutted ‘colonialist’ history, preferring instead a history which is politically relevant and of use to the nation-building effort (Tun Aung Chain 2004: 19).

Padaw: the physical context The Forchhammer pictures are not the only pieces of worked stone within the 30m of hillside on which they sit, let alone in the wider area. A recumbent slab 2.5 by 1.5m, partially shaped by chisels, has a large crack through it and through the chisel work. There is a stone Buddha-throne similar to examples at pagodas in Mrauk-U (Shwe Zan 1995: 119; Gutman 2001: Plates 83-86). Nearby, on the edge of the rice fields, is a 4.5 by 2.5m worked slab known locally as the ‘crocodile’, its surface covered with chisel marks (Figures 21 and 22). At a spot 100m north along the lower part of the hill there is a stone with a longitudinal groove, in which are several holes. This suggests an attempt to split it. Another stone has a line of semicircular indentations, suggesting that a piece has been successfully split off. A further 450m north there is a carved relief of a Buddha footprint, decorated with auspicious symbols, similar to one seen in the AD 1629 Sakyamanaung pagoda at Mrauk-U (Shwe Zan 1995: 81) and sharing elements with Buddha footprints of seventeenth-century Ayuthaya (Di Crocco 2004: Plates 80, 82, 83). There Figure 21. Padaw. Sketch map, relative locations of is also an incised footprint, more naturalistic rock pictures, using Forchhammer’s numbering. in shape than the stylised Buddha footprint, and a statue of an ogre with a cross-shaped geometrical incision on its base, of the kind used to inscribe horoscopes. These damaged, incomplete or otherwise abandoned pieces appear to be the debris of quarrying and production at a site servicing the construction of religious monuments at Mrauk-U. The capital was directly accessible by a network of waterways, the Padaw River and the Naragauk, Baukshama and Thinbauk chaungs (streams). 671

Research

Pamela Gutman et al.

Rock art and artisans in the Lemro Valley, Arakan, Myanmar

Figure 22. Padaw: chiselled stone, known locally as ‘the crocodile’.

Padaw: periodisation When Myint Aung visited Padaw in 1981, he concluded that while the engravings ‘prove to be far below the high standard of Mrauk-U art’ their value ‘lies in their depiction of the local folk characteristics and aspirations’. He stressed their context, amid the remnants of AD 1524 Sigunmyo, and attributed them to a period ‘no earlier’ than the sixteenth century (Myint Aung 1981). This is borne out by the current review of the pictures, notably the similarities between the depictions of the swordsmen and putative wrestlers at Padaw and similar representations in sixteenth-century relief sculpture at Mrauk-U. Human figures in Forchhammer’s pictures (Figures 14, 16, 17 and 19) along with the humans portrayed at Pyaingdet-taung (Figure 6) share the characteristic of big, protruding ears with artworks of the later Mrauk-U period (Gutman 2001: 137-40). There are substantial variations in the draftsmanship of the Padaw incisions, the leaning man (Figure 20) being perhaps the most skilfully rendered and the ‘man with tree spirit’ (Figure 19) relatively na¨ıve. This might suggest that they were the work of different people.

Conclusion On the available evidence, an origin in or after the Mrauk-U period can be suggested for the Pyaingdet-taung images. Swordsmen with big ears, conical hats and bucklers, along with birds, fish and parades of horses and elephants are part of the decorative repertoire in pagodas such as the Shittaung (Shwe Zan 1995: 40-1; Gutman 2001: 94-105). Similarly, the ‘Forchhammer’ petroglyphs at Padaw can be attributed to more than one person, some 672

time between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Since some of the pictures, the ones with protruding ears, reflect the later Mrauk-U style, then the late seventeenth or eighteenth century may be more likely. But the Padaw pictures can no longer be seen as the action of folk artists telling, in stone, an otherwise undocumented story of invasion, oppression and resistance. Both sites appear to have been created by people familiar with the art of the Mrauk-U period. Both sites were in use as quarries for the preparation of architectural and sculptural materials for religious edifices. But different sets of skills appear to be in use. The petroglyphs seem to have been made by people with skills in stone cutting, rather than in relief sculpture. The lack of proportion and at times less sophisticated style of the petroglyphs suggests that these are not models for the temple sculptures, but na¨ıve impressions of those sculptures. Images such as the ‘tree spirit’ (Figure 19) may reflect a popular tradition not usually found in the religious edifices. It is difficult not to conclude that the petroglyphs of Pyaingdet-taung and Padaw are the work of the artisans, rather than the artists, of Mrauk-U. Acknowledgements Fieldwork was supported by the Australian Research Council. Our thanks go to the Myanmar Archaeology Department; to the Departmental staff at the Mrauk-U office, notably Aung Tun Hla and Nyein Lwin for rubbings; to the Reverend Zayanda Bodhi; to Myint Aung and to an anonymous reviewer. Maps, photographs and digitisation by Bob Hudson, except for Figure 20, by Kyaw Tun Aung.

References

–1998. A series of Buddhist reliefs from Selagiri. Etudes birmanes: 103-11. EFEO. –2001. Burma’s Lost Kingdoms: Splendours of Arakan. Hong Kong: Orchid Press. Harvey, G.E. 1925. History of Burma. London: Frank Cass & Co. Hudson, B. 2005. Ancient geography and recent archaeology: Dhanyawadi, Vesali and Mrauk-u (The Forgotten History of Arakan conference). Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University. Johnston, E.H. 1944. Some Sanskrit inscriptions of Arakan. BSOAS 21: 357-85. Leider, J. 2002. On Arakanese Territorial Expansion: Origins, Context, Means and Practice, in J. Gommans & J. Leider (ed.) The Maritime Frontiers of Burma: 127-49. Amsterdam: Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen & Leiden: KITLV Press. –2005. Lord Buddha comes to Arakan: Relics, Statues and Predictions (Unpublished Manuscript). Min Thein Zan. 1997. The History of the Padaw Pagoda (in Burmese). PEAL: Publisher of Eminent Arakanese Literature. Myint Aung. 1979. Rock-cut story of an ancient resistance. The Working Peoples’ Daily 13 April. –1981. Determining the age of the Pataw engravings. The Working Peoples’ Daily 22 May: 5.

Aung Thaw. 1971. The ‘Neolithic’ Culture of the Padah-lin Caves. Asian Perspectives 14: 123-33. Berliet, E. 2004. G´eographie historique et urbanisation en Birmanie et ses pays voisins, des origines (II`e s. av. J.C.) a` la fin du XIII`e si`ecle. Unpublished PhD thesis, Universit´e Lumi`ere, Lyon II. Charney, M.W. 1998. Crisis and Reformation in a Maritime Kingdom of Southeast Asia: Forces of Instability and Political Disintegration in Western Burma (Arakan), 1603-1701. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 41(2): 185-219. Di Crocco, V. 2004. Footprints of the Buddhas of this era in Thailand. Bangkok: The Siam Society. Forchhammer, E. 1892. Report on the antiquities of Arakan. Burma: The Archaeology Department. Green, A. 2002. Narrative modes in late seventeenthto early nineteenth-century Burmese wall paintings, in A. Green & T.R. Blurton (ed.) Burma: Art and Archaeology: 67-76. London: British Museum Press. Gutman, P. 1976. Ancient Arakan, with special reference to its cultural history between the 5th and 11th centuries (PhD thesis). Canberra: Australian National University, http://thesis.anu.edu.au/ public/adt-ANU20050901.112732/ index.html.

673

Research

Pamela Gutman et al.

Rock art and artisans in the Lemro Valley, Arakan, Myanmar Ni Min Shin. 2001. The Rakhine Historical Episode as revealed by the Padaw Stone Pictures (in Burmese). Kassapa Magazine. Nyunt Han. 1984. The Study of Ancient City Vesali (Departmental Report, in Burmese). Yangon: Department of Archaeology. Oldham, T. 1883. Catalogue of Indian earthquakes. Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India 19: 163–215. Shwe Zan. 1995. The Golden Mrauk-U, an ancient capital of Rakhine. Yangon: U Shwe Zan. Smart, R.B. 1917. Burma Gazetteer, Akyab District, Volume A. Rangoon: Superintendent, Government Printing and Stationery, Union of Burma. Srisuchat, A. 1990. Rock Art at Khao Plara, Uthai Thani. Thailand: Fine Arts Department. Tac¸ on, P.S.C., D.Y.Y. Aung & A. Thorne. 2004. Myanmar prehistory: rare rock-markings revealed. Archaeology in Oceania 39: 138-39.

Than Tun. 1999. From Mrauk-U to Sittwe, the Development of Trade Cities in Western Myanmar (in Burmese). Myanma Dana 107: 62-72 & 108: 66-74. Thin Kyi, D. 1970. Arakanese capitals: a preliminary survey of their geographical siting. Journal of the Burma Research Society 53(2): 1-13. Tun Aung Chain. 2004. Broken Glass: Pieces of Myanmar History. Yangon: SEAMEO Regional Centre for History and Tradition. Tun Shwe Khine. 1994. A guide to Mahamuni: the highly venerated golden image of Buddha with authentic long history. Rakhine Book Series. van Galen, S. 2002. Arakan at the turn of the first Millennium of the Arakanese era, in J. Gommans & J. Leider (ed.) The Maritime Frontiers of Burma: 151-62. Amsterdan: Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen & Leiden: KITLV Press.

674

Related Documents