Bagan – a city lost in time

pagan (or Bagan (Bagan) — can rightly be called one of the most incredible monuments of human civilization. This Morning the capital of the ancient Kingdom, located on the territory of today"s Myanmar, the Kingdom is now renamed to the current Burma.



the City is located on a dry plateau in the center of the country, on the Western Bank of the Irrawaddy river. Pagan founded over a thousand years ago who came here in the first tribes of the Burmese. Pagan is the world"s largest complex of Buddhist temples, stupas, pagodas and ruins.



Morning the Kingdom was founded in 1044, but did not last after that and two and a half centuries.



At its peak it is a medieval Buddhist state encompassing the entire territory of modern Myanmar (Burma). Here occurred the birth of Burmese literature, architecture and art. However, in 1287, after a century of decline, Morning the Kingdom was conquered by the Mongols looted and broken in the Principality.



a Significant part of the buildings in town were built between XI-XIII century. The ruling in those years the king Anirudha or Anartha (rules 1044г for 1077г), gathered a military campaign against the neighbouring peoples – Hmong, collecting a huge booty, he took with him over 100 volumes of the" Tripitaka" — set of works of the Buddhist Canon.



Thanks Anirudha appeared in the country, Buddhism, writing and books. Then the brave war Anybody brought from Tatarskogo States artists, builders, scribes, and scholars. On the construction and decoration of pagan worked mon, Burmese, Chinese, Indian and other artisans.





In the universities studied pagan nobleman from different countries, it was built a few libraries. Bagan is quickly becoming the largest cultural center of Asia with a million people.





the Burmese made great strides in agriculture, irrigation (supply of water to fields lacking moisture), craft and culture. Also developed poetry, religious literature, painting, music. Every subsequent king of pagan, sought to perpetuate his name and were built in honor of a large temple and several small ones. To show their wealth were not only kings, but all the men of state building a large lush mansions.



After the attack on the Kingdom of the Mongol troops (in 1277), the people left the city.





When-то pleasing to the eye wooden palaces and homes after the military fires in ruins, dried up ponds, crowded streets overgrown with cacti and dry grass, but the pagodas, stupas, monasteries and temples of the city are still here, there are about 5,000 buildings! Currently on site whenever-то flourishing city is a zone (about 40-ка square meters) for archaeological research.





According to some historians the first reports on Bagan left in his book of Marco Polo – the great traveler European. In his book he has described the war of the Mongols by the Pagan and the city itself. After almost half a Millennium, European travelers came to the pagan. Among them was an Englishman saime, his pictures were drawn, some of the temples of Bagan. But if Marco Floor lucky enough to see a living city, the second expedition to the end of the eighteenth century had found the dead city. But then Bagan has not yet been looted by the British and the motley adventurers.





England wanted to conquer Burma, and in this regard, the British government collected all possible information about this country. The British sent in the pagan spies, military officers, missionaries, diplomats. In 1885, as soon as Burma was conquered, with the scouts came to the city the robbers. The city was sacked by the soldiers, officers and imagined archaeologists, they were taken from pagan, ranging from small statues to entire walls with frescoes.





And at the beginning of our century, after Burma gained independence, these scientists came to study the pagan. But, despite the efforts of historians to unravel the mysteries of the city of Bagan failed so far.



Today in Bagan there are only a few villages of Old Bagan, Ve-чжи In Myinkaba, Nyaung U airport, Bagan. The city is a Museum annually pagan restored and lead archaeological excavations. These tend to fall artists, architects, art historians, philologists, pagan come to practice students from Burma and large groups of tourists from around the world. Lost in time the Bagan every year returns to its former glory, more and more people learn about it and eager to visit here.



the Most famous and visited today the stupa @- Lokananda Chaun and Shwezigon. They are asphalt paths, the stupa is covered in gold and scattered them around the various pavilions. And, these remarkable stupa that contains the teeth of the Buddha.





a Large part of the pagodas in the city not covered with gold and is built mostly of white stone and red brick. There are small stupas and pagodas are already in a ruined condition. The same pagoda, which has survived to our time, strictly protected and undergoing restoration. The area between the temples are occupied by thickets of plants, palm trees or just desert land.

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