World Heritage Listed Halin

Thirteen kilometres from Shwebo is the World Heritage listed site of Halin.

Radiocarbon dating from earthenware just outside the city show the area was settled some 4,500 years before present.

Halin was one of three Pyu cities that arose in the valley between the Ayeyawaddy and Mu Rivers between the second century BC and the ninth century AD. There were three Pyu cities: Beikthano, Halin and Sri Ksetra. They were a literate and cultured race with their own language and literature and were master craftsmen.

Although Pyu cities disappeared in the ninth century, the Mya Zedi inscription of the 10^th century, written in four languages, includes Pyu script, so some of them were still around. Maybe they assimilated into the new kingdom of Pagan. The other three languages inscribed are Bamar, Mon and Pali. We know the Pyu were in contact with the people of Rakhaing from at least the 5^th century, because in Vesali there are Buddha images showing the Pyu stylisation. In Mrauk U there’s an inscription in Pyu script dating from the 6^th century. The Pyu became devoted Buddhists: so much so, they would not wear silk, as they abhorred the taking of life.

The Pyu were a gentle people: but they had their moments. Allegedly they invaded Rakhaing and tried to steal the Mahamuni Buddha. In 6^th century Vesali, there was a royal shrine which legend says is the burial ground of a Pyu king and his army. Perhaps these were the aspiring looters.

Halin is a huge archeological site covering 540 hectares. The brick walls extend 3.2 kilometres from north to south and 1.6 kilometres from east to west. The foundations of the city have 12 city walls each many metres thick made of terracotta bricks in which you can still see the rice husks that were used in their manufacture.

In the site museum are objects ploughed up by farmers. From the Neolithic came stone tools and rings. From the Bronze Age wire bundles and bronze tools and from the Iron Age came earthenware in terracotta.

There were accessible routes from Halin to ancient silver mines and they manufactured their own silver coins. A nearby hill, Dutin-taung was a source of chalcedony a semi-precious greenish coloured stone that they carved into beads and small figures of elephants. 

Beside and beneath one entrance gate, excavations descend many metres.  The area is enclosed in concrete and has a roof making it a shady place to view the albeit rather grizzly skeletons. Whether these people were buried alive to protect the inhabitants of the city, as was the custom in some ages, is unclear, but there were rather too few to indicate a cemetery.