A drawing of the ornate audience hall, which will be one of the main attractions of the Bagan palace project.

WORK is continuing on a replica of the royal palace at Bagan and the main wooden building is expected to be completed in September, one of the architects involved in the project said last week.

The architect, Tam-pa-waddy U Win Maung, said 65 per cent of the structure, which features a five-tiered roof, had been completed by the end of last week.
The building houses a vast audience hall containing the throne on which King Anawrahta, who reigned from 1044 to 1077, received visitors, U Win Maung said.

The work on the main building is part of a rebuilding project which began late last year at Bagan, one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations, about 185 miles southwest of Mandalay.

“The 11th century palace complex had 22 buildings, of which we are building 12 replicas of the originals,” U Win Maung said.

He said it had been possible to copy the original buildings because excavations at the palace site had resulted in the recovery of detailed architectural designs and decorations.

U Win Maung said the government had so far spent K30 million on the project.
The project is being implemented by the Archeology Department at Bagan, which excavated the old palace site. Htoo Trading Co., Ltd., is responsible for the main structural work and U Win Maung for the architectural decorations.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Culture has restricted access to the upper levels of another 18 pagodas at Bagan because of concerns they may be damaged by tourists.

The decision, which took effect on April 24, was revealed by U Aung Kyaing, the Bagan-based deputy director general of the ministry’s Archeology Department during a visit to Yangon last week.

It brings the number of pagodas at Bagan with restricted access to 25. The department restricted access to the upper levels of seven pagodas in 1998.
U Aung Kyaing said two of the pagodas added to the list in April, the Wet-Gyi-Inn Gu-bauk-gyi and Wet-Gyi-Inn Gu-bauk-nge, suffered earthquake damage in 1975 and could not bear the weight from crowds of tourists.

He said access to the Mingala Zedi and some other pagodas had been restricted to prevent the theft of valuable artifacts.

“The Mingala Zedi has more than 700 glazed ceramic plaques featuring stories from the Buddha’s previous lives in relief and parts of some of them have been stolen by tourists,” he said.