Kalinga Ancient Trade Routes

Maliwan

Strongly Supported Archaeology

Maliwan is a very old port town in southern Myanmar, next to a river close to the sea. Diggers there found beads and pottery that had travelled all the way from India.

Maliwan is a very old port town. It sits in southern Myanmar. It is on gentle hills, next to a river. The river flows into the Bay of Bengal. Archaeologists dated the site. They used two radiocarbon tests. It was used from the fourth to the second century BCE. [Bellina, 2018, Antiquity 92(366), e6 (2018), pp. 3, 5]

Diggers worked at Maliwan and a nearby site, Aw Gyi. They found many objects made in India. These include beads made of carnelian and glass. They also found fine grey pottery and clay figures in an Indian style. [Dayalan, 2019, offprint p. 23]

For scholars

Maliwan is not a Kalinga port. It is a partner site in the wider Bay of Bengal trade network. The 2018 report covers only the first digging season. Its dates rest on just two radiocarbon tests. Its date range starts earlier than this atlas’s Mauryan period. So the period tag here is only a rough fit. No source prints an exact coordinate. The position given is the modern village of Maliwan. It is read from a map, not the actual dig site. [Bellina, 2018, Antiquity 92(366), e6 (2018), pp. 3, 5; Dayalan, 2019, offprint p. 23]

Facts

Coordinates
10.24°, 98.60°
[Natural Earth, 1, n.d.]
  1. *Natural Earth, 1:50m Physical and Cultural Vectors*. n.d. public domain
Modern name
Maliwan, Kawthaung Township, Tanintharyi Region, Myanmar
Also known as
Aw Gyi (nearby satellite site)
Region
southeast-asia
Scholar notes

Not a Kalinga port; included as a documented Bay of Bengal maritime-network partner. Bellina et al. 2018 is a preliminary 'Project Gallery' report on the first excavation season; dates rest on two radiocarbon determinations. The 4th-2nd century BCE range starts earlier than this atlas's 'mauryan' period (from 300 BCE); tags are an approximate fit. No coordinate is printed in the article; position given is the modern village of Maliwan, read from a map, not the excavation trench.

  1. Berenice Bellina, Maung Sun Win, Kalayar Myat Myat Htwe, Htet Myat Thu, Cristina Castillo, Camille Colonna, Laure Dussubieux, Aude Favereau, Emiri Miyama, Baptiste Pradier, Thomas Oliver Pryce, Sachipan Srikanlaya, Elisabeth Triviere. *Myanmar's earliest Maritime Silk Road port-settlements revealed*. in Antiquity 92. 2018 , Antiquity 92(366), e6 (2018), pp. 3, 5 (p. 3: 'Maliwan is a large settlement ... on gently sloping hills ... west of a tributary of the Kraburi River ... radiocarbon dates ... suggest occupation from the fourth to second centuries BC.' p. 5: 'Aw Gyi is situated approximately 15km west of Maliwan, facing the Bay of Bengal.')
  2. Duraiswamy Dayalan. *Ancient Seaports on the Eastern Coast of India: The Hub of the Maritime Silk Route Network*. in Acta Via Serica 4. 2019 , offprint p. 23 ('Maliwan and Aw Gyi, the notable ancient port cities in southern Myanmar, have yielded lots of materials of Indian origin such as carnelian beads, glass beads ... fine grey pottery, terracotta figurines of Maurya-Sunga style.')