The Ancient East-West Cultural Corridor Emerged from Myanmar to Thailand and Cambodia - Around 2,000 Kilometers in Mainland Southeast Asia

The Ancient East-West Cultural Corridor Emerged from Myanmar to Thailand and Cambodia - Around 2,000 Kilometers in Mainland Southeast Asia

September 18, 2013

The Ancient Road – The East-West Cultural Corridor, which ancient cultural exchanges were existed associated with such as rule, religion, and trade in mainland Southeast Asia from Myanmar to Thailand and Cambodia, was emerged from recent studies by the EWCC project. The project has been organized by Program-specific Professor Mamoru Shibayama and Assoc. Prof. Masayuki Yanagisawa, CIAS (Center for Integrated Area Studies), Kyoto University, and Prof. Elizabeth Howard Moore, SOAS (The School of Oriental and African Studies), University of London, together with the following international teams.

Key Points

• "The East-West Cultural Corridor (EWCC)" has emerged from computer analyses for inventories of the Thai archaeological sites, the Myanmar archaeological monuments, and Cambodia Khmer sites using GIS (Geographical Information System).
• Study on EWCC will be delivered in the PNC (Pacific Neighborhood Consortium) Annual Conference and Joint Meetings 2013, which will be held in Kyoto University on 9th-14th, December 2013.
• The project starts land-based field survey in earnest from Kanchanaburi, Thailand to the coastal city of Dawei, Myanmar at last ten days of February 2014 based on the GIS analyses.

Outline of the EWCC

The Ancient Road "East-West Cultural Corridor" was newly emerged from recent studies on analyses of archaeological site inventories adding with supplementary materials using GIS. Inventories analyzed are made up the archaeological site data, which consists of Thai archaeological site inventory around 7,400 sites, Myanmar monuments around 430 sites, and Cambodia Khmer sites around 400 sites. Moreover, archaeological evidences obtained from field surveys and prior researches were applied as well. Such resources were linked and analyzed on the view point of geospatial location with temporal axis using GIS, in other words, based on area informatics approach which has been promoted in CIAS, Kyoto University.

The "East-West Corridor" theory was firstly introduced by Professor Emeritus of Kyoto University Yoneo Ishii, who received the honor in public from Japanese Government as the person who has made outstanding cultural contributions, in the journal of Japan Society for Southeast Asian Studies in 2009 as a memorandum for hypothesis on the ancient road, which explained ancient trade route from Martaban, Myanmar to Sukhothai via Mae Sot in Tak province, Thailand in the 13th-14th centuries with evidences of Sukhothai stone inscription and prior researches.

Studies in the project have been carried out as one of projects under the IPCR (International Program of Collaborative Research) in CSEAS (Center for Southeast Asian Studies), Kyoto University and as part of "Area Informatics" activities in CIAS, Kyoto University.

Through those studies until now, it was found that the Mon people had established ancient cities in Pegu and Thaton in around 6th century. In same period of Thailand, the Dvaravati by the Mon people also flourished from around 6th to 10th centuries. After the Dvaravati, the Khmer empire had expanded their rule from Angkor in mainland Southeast Asia. Then, the Khmer empire was substituted by the Sukhothai and Ayutthaya dynasties, and prospered in the Chaophraya river basin. The east-west corridor, which ran from Myanmar to Thailand and Cambodia, was emerged with transition of cultural exchanges on periods using GIS analyses.

In addition, routes for the East-West Cultural Corridor were estimated using supplemental documents such as the ethnological survey record from Myanmar to Thailand and Yunnan province of China which carried out by the officials as the diplomatic missions of UK government in 1830s, the route map figured for No.39 troops of Japanese army, and confidential military route map from Myanmar to Thailand issued by Allied Land Force - Southeast Asia in 1943.

Fig.1：Estimation of "Khmer Road" in Angkor Period (9th -15th centuries)

Fig.2：Estimation of "Sukhothai Road" in Sukhothai Period (13th -15th centuries)

Fig.3：Estimation of "Ayutthaya Road" in Ayutthaya Period (14th -18th centuries)

Plans in the future

The result of this study will be delivered as one of panels in PNC Annual Conference and Joint Meetings 2013, which will be held from 9th-12th, December in Clock Tower Centennial Hall, Kyoto University organized by CIAS and CSEAS (Center for Southeast Asian Studies), Kyoto University, SIG-Computer and Humanities of Information Processing Society of Japan, National Institutes for the Humanities, and Asian Network for GIS-based Historical Studies.