In the modern world, we can share information and new products as quickly as an email can be sent, or a parcel can be loaded onto an aircraft. But the brick-walled urban centres that sprung up in Myanmar around 150 CE suggest that ancient people could be just as excited about new information and products, even though the transmission of data and cultural objects followed a different path. These huge resource-intensive cities, inspired by the walled cities of India, were not built in sequence, as has been generally assumed, but in the same period. Once the Royal City arrived, the chiefly families of early First Millennium Upper Myanmar just had to have one.
Thanks as always to the Myanmar Department of Archaeology and its Director General, Kyaw Oo Lwin, for cooperation and collaboration. Radiocarbon dates are courtesy of a grant via the University of Sydney from AINSE, the Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering. Thanks also to Tampawady Win Maung, Kyaw Myo Win, Pamela Gutman, Dietrich Mahlo, Michael Aung-Thwin, Win Kyaing, Arlo Griffiths, Ernelle Berliet and Thein Lwin.