ASIA / PACIFIC
November 7, 2016
Group hopes to preserve heritage
of Myanmar’s biggest city
By Elaine Kurtenbach
AP Business Writer
ANGON, Myanmar — A
Yangon historic-preservation
group
says
Myanmar’s
largest city and commercial capital is
facing its “last best chance” to save
many
crumbling
architectural
treasures dating back to the days
when Myanmar was the British
colony of Burma.
The Yangon Heritage Trust
recently proposed a heritage strategy
for Yangon, outlining a vision for
making the Southeast Asian city
more livable, modern, and affordable
while preserving its unique land-
marks and neglected green spaces.
Yangon, the former capital, has
been razing old buildings as it widens
roads and builds flyovers to help ease
massive traffic congestion. Property
developers are rushing in. A few of
the many colonial structures in the
downtown area have been restored to
their past glory, but most are
crumbling, paint blackened or
peeling, turrets topped with emerald
tufts of grass and bushes. Others are
moldering away behind walls,
engulfed by jungle.
“The city is at a tipping point and,
without action, Yangon may become
another of the region’s urban disaster
zones,” the Yangon Heritage Trust
said in its report, alluding to cities
like Singapore that have lost most of
their beautiful older buildings. It
argues that making the city more
livable is crucial to its future
competitiveness.
Here are five takeaways from the
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LAST BEST CHANCE. People walk by an old colonial building used by Myanmar Posts
and Telecommunications (MPT) as an office in Yangon, Myanmar. The Yangon Heritage Trust says
Myanmar’s largest city and commercial capital is facing its “last best chance” to salvage and restore
many crumbling colonial treasures. It has proposed a heritage strategy for the city that outlines a vi-
sion of how to make the city more livable, modern, and affordable, while preserving its unique land-
marks and neglected green spaces. (AP Photo/Elaine Kurtenbach)
blueprint:
Shwedagon Pagoda
The gleaming golden spire of
Stop demolitions
The Heritage Trust calls for a Shwedagon, an oasis of calm in an
moratorium on demolishing old increasingly noisy and chaotic city, is
buildings until basic, long-term plans surrounded by lush parklands that
could be connected by walkways to
are drawn up.
make Yangon more welcoming to
Ensure good
pedestrians and create more leisure
quality preservation
Both interiors and exteriors of old space.
Reuse, recycle, repurpose
buildings need to be protected, to
One top priority is to reuse
prevent landmark structures from
government buildings that were
being mere “facades.”
abandoned when Myanmar’s political
Make a master plan
Yangon, formerly known as Ran- capital was moved to Naypyitaw, a
goon, risks losing its rich colonial and new city to the north. The trust
traditional Burmese heritage due to proposes using the decrepit former
ill-coordinated property development Ministry of Hotels and Tourism, built
and other construction. For example, in 1905 and originally a department
pedestrian access to the waterfront store, as a visitor information center
from the riverside Strand Road is and civic hall. These days, it looks
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Roman coins identified in Japanese ruins, but their origin baffles
By Mari Yamaguchi
The Associated Press
OKYO — The eyes of a visiting archaeologist lit up
when he was shown the 10 tiny, tarnished discs
that had sat unnoticed in storage for
two-and-a-half years at a dig on a southern Japan island.
He had been to archaeological sites in Italy and Egypt,
and recognized the “little round things” as old coins,
including a few likely dating to the Roman Empire.
“I was so excited I almost forgot what I was there for,
and the coins were all we talked about,” said Toshio
Tsukamoto of the Gangoji Institute for Research of
Cultural Property in Nara, an ancient Japanese capital
near Kyoto.
The discovery, announced in September, is baffling.
How did the coins, some dating to the third or fourth
century, wind up half a world away in a medieval castle on
Okinawa, the island that was not part of Japan then.
Experts suspect they may have arrived centuries later via
China or Southeast Asia, not as currency but as
decoration or treasure.
The 10 copper coins were unearthed in December 2013
at the 12th- to 15th-century Katsuren Castle, a UNESCO
World Heritage site, during an annual excavation for
study and tourism promotion by the board of education in
Uruma, a city in central Okinawa.
While the find has yet to be submitted for publication in
an academic journal, an outside expert is convinced the
coins are real.
“There is almost no mistake” about their authenticity,
said Makiko Tsumura, a curator at the Ancient Orient
Museum in Tokyo, though she allowed that they could also
be counterfeit versions from about the same time.
Four of the coins are from the third- to fourth-century
Roman Empire, and a fifth one from the 17th-century
Ottoman Empire. The remaining five are still being
examined.
The coins, which are on display at the Uruma City
Yonagusuku Historical Museum through November 25,
were dug up from about one yard underground in a layer
believed to be from the 14th to 15th century.
“At first, we didn’t think they were coins. Those little
round things, to us, seemed like armor parts,” said Masaki
Yokoo, a city official in charge of the archaeological
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MONEY MYSTERY. People work at an excavation site where 10
coins, including a few likely dating to the Roman Empire, were found at
Katsuren Castle in Uruma on Japan’s southernmost prefectural island of
Okinawa, in this 2013 photo released by the Uruma City Board of Educa-
tion. The 10 copper coins were unearthed in December 2013 at Katsuren
Castle, a UNESCO World Heritage site, during an annual excavation for
study and tourism promotion by the Board of Education in Uruma, a city
in central Okinawa. (Uruma City Board of Education via AP)
project.
Details that were barely distinguishable emerged more
clearly in x-ray analysis. One bears an image of
fourth-century Roman Emperor Constantine I, and
another shows a helmeted soldier holding a shield in one
hand, while stabbing an enemy with a spear in the other.
The Ottoman coin is inscribed with the year equivalent
to 1687, Yokoo said.
Tsumura said the x-ray analysis, photos, size, and
weight match typical Roman and Ottoman coins,
resembling those excavated in China, Indonesia, and
India — places that had trade with Okinawa.
Tsukamoto said the coins might have been intentionally
planted as a pacifying ritual at the castle, which was
abandoned in 1458, similar to armor, jewelry, and other
valuables buried in funeral rituals in Okinawa.
Further investigation, including analysis of the copper
content and other artifacts found with the coins, may help
identify the origin of the coins.
Researchers are also seeking an explanation for why
coins from two distinct eras were found near each other,
and how a 17th-century coin could have been in a layer
believed to be 200 to 300 years older than that.
“There are still lots of unknowns,” said Okinawa
International University archaeologist Hiroki Miyagi.
“Our findings this time are just the beginning.”
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