Mon State’s Bamar ethnic affairs minister U Shwe Myint was one of two officials selected to preside yesterday over the donation of a trove of antique clay and stone beads by a Mawlamyine woman to the Department of Archaeology and National Museum.
The minister presented Daw Khin Win with a reward of more than K2 million (US$1,500) in exchange for the beads, which the department says date back to the Pyu period, before the Bamar settled in what is now Myanmar starting in the 9th century.
The Pyu civilization, however, was not located in what is now Mawlamyine. It is not clear whether the beads were excavated from Pyu sites in central Myanmar or whether the the beads actually came from an ancient Mon polity that existed during the same period as the Pyu.
Whether the beads are Pyu or Mon, the selection of the Bamar ethnic affairs minister to receive the donation seems like a pretty clear attempt to Burmanize them, removing them from their own history and incorporating them into Bamar history. (It’s almost like appointing Andrew Jackson’s ghost to accept a donation of Native American artifacts on behalf of the US government.)
There’s also a possibility that the beads are not as old as the department claims. Myanmar archaeologists have been known to impulsively link artifacts to the Pyu civilization before being disproven.
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