Myanmar

Temple at Bagan

Myanmar eradicates trachoma

The World Health Organization has validated that the disease has been eliminated from the country: This is extra impressive, because in 2005, trachoma was responsible for 4% of all cases of blindness there. The nation joins Nepal in the WHO South-East Asia Region and 12 countries globally to achieve this feat.

The Pyu realm in the red zone, for article on Pyu city-states

Pyu city-states rise in Upper Myanmar, reshaping Southeast Asia

Pyu city-states rose along Myanmar’s Irrawaddy River more than two thousand years ago, with walled settlements like Beikthano, Sri Ksetra, and Halin taking shape from around 200 B.C.E. Roman coins and Indian religious art found at these sites show just how far their trade reached. They’re among Southeast Asia’s earliest known cities — and a reminder that urban life in the region grew from its own roots.

wunna aung DubvD hEd M unsplash, for article on myanmar bronze age

Myanmar’s Bronze Age begins as copper smelting spreads through ancient Burma

The Myanmar Bronze Age began around 1500 B.C.E., when communities in the river valleys and highlands started smelting copper and tin into tools harder than anything they’d worked before. At Nyaunggan in Shwebo Township, bronze axes mark the shift, alongside rice fields and domesticated pigs and chickens. It was less a rupture than an acceleration of life already millennia in the making.

image for article on Anyathian culture

Anyathian culture takes root in the caves and valleys of ancient Myanmar

Anyathian culture emerged roughly 13,000 years ago in the river valleys and upland caves of central Myanmar, leaving behind pebble tools, polished stone implements, and painted handprints in red ochre. Inside the Padah-Lin caves near Taunggyi, archaeologists have catalogued more than 1,600 stone artifacts alongside images of fish, bison, and deer — early traces of a people shaping a world that would echo across millennia.