YANGON — Several new pagoda sites have been unearthed in Bagan during an archaeological inventory of the town’s ancient temples for a World Heritage List application, media reports said Tuesday.
The pagoda inventory is due to be concluded by February, as part of Myanmar’s bid to have Bagan listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, possibly by 2017, the Global New Light of Myanmar reported.
So far more than 800 pagodas have been accounted for in just two of Bagan’s 11 administrative zones, Archaeology and National Museum Department deputy director general U Thein Lwin told the state-run daily.
“There were also some instances whereby pagodas were discovered which [had] been buried under mounds of earth,” U Thein Lwin said. “There are many pagodas that are now coming to the surface.”
Bagan was the seat of the Pagan kingdom between the 11th and 13th centuries and has in recent years become one of Myanmar’s prime tourist attractions. Over 250,000 foreign tourists visited Bagan and its monasteries in 2015, according to figures from the Ministry of Tourism.
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