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Mottama ( my, မုတ္တမမြို့, ; Muttama mnw, မုဟ်တၟံ, ; formerly Martaban) is a town in the Thaton District of
Mon State Mon State ( my, မွန်ပြည်နယ်, ; mnw, တွဵုရးဍုင်မန်, italics=no) is an administrative division of Myanmar. It lies between Kayin State to the east, the Andaman Sea to the west, Bago Region to th ...
,
Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
. Located on the west bank of the Thanlwin river (Salween), on the opposite side of Mawlamyaing, Mottama was the capital of the Martaban Kingdom (later known as Hanthawaddy Kingdom) from 1287 to 1364, and an entrepôt of international repute until the mid-16th century.


Etymology

"Mottama" derives from the
Mon language The Mon language (, mnw, ဘာသာမန်, links=no, (Mon-Thai ဘာသာမည်) ; my, မွန်ဘာသာ; th, ภาษามอญ; formerly known as Peguan and Talaing) is an Austroasiatic language spoken by the Mon peop ...
term "Mumaw" ( mnw, မုဟ်တၟံ; ), which means "rocky spur."


History


Prior to 15th century

From the 2nd century BCE to the 15th century CE, Martaban was an important trading port. The historic Maritime Silk Road connected the East and
West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...
, and Martaban storage jars were imported through this trade route. The earliest evidence of the existence of Martaban in Myanmar history was revealed in an inscription erected by King Sithu II of the Bagan Empire in 1176. The ancient city was called Sampanago (Campа̄nа̄ga, lit. City of Serpents) or Puñjaluin in the Mon language. It may also be referred to within the context of Muttama-Dhañyawaddy or Sampanago-Lakunbyin as a roughly 45 kilometer stretch or settlements along the Salween River stretching from modern day Mottama to Hpa-an. Artifacts from the Sampanago site support a thriving sixth to ninth century culture with trade to other early sites over land and across the sea. Coins and cultural influences in artifacts indicate that Sampanago had close contacts with
Thaton Thaton (; mnw, သဓီု ) is a town in Mon State, in southern Myanmar on the Tenasserim plains. Thaton lies along the National Highway 8 and is also connected by the National Road 85. It is 230 km south east of Yangon and 70 k ...
and early sites in
U Thong King U-thongThe Royal Institute. List of monarchs Ayutthaya''. ( th, พระเจ้าอู่ทอง) or King Ramathibodi I ( th, สมเด็จพระรามาธิบดีที่ ๑ ; 1314–1369) was the first king of ...
and Kanchanaburi In the 13th century, Martaban was a southern provincial capital in the Bagan Empire. After Bagan's collapse in 1287, King
Wareru Wareru ( mnw, ဝါရေဝ်ရောဝ်, my, ဝါရီရူး, ; also known as Wagaru; 20 March 1253 – 14 January 1307) was the founder of the Martaban Kingdom, located in present-day Myanmar (Burma). By using both diplomatic ...
founded the Martaban Kingdom based out of Martaban. The city was the capital of a Mon-speaking kingdom from 1287 to 1364. Nominally it was a vassal state of the Thai
Sukhothai Kingdom The Sukhothai Kingdom ( th, สุโขทัย, , IAST: , ) was a post-classical Thai kingdom ( mandala) in Mainland Southeast Asia surrounding the ancient capital city of Sukhothai in present-day north-central Thailand. The kingdom was ...
until 1314. From 1369 onwards, the Hanthawaddy kings ruled the kingdom from Bago (Pegu).Harvey 1925: 368 From 1364 to 1388, Martaban was under the de facto independent rule of
Byattaba Byattaba ( my, ဗြတ်ထဗ; ; also Byat-Hta-Ba) was the ruler of the Martaban province of the Martaban–Hanthawaddy Kingdom from 1364 to 1388. He came to power by staging a coup against King Binnya U with the help of his brothers. Their ...
. In 1388, King
Razadarit Razadarit ( mnw, ရာဇာဓိရာတ်,The spelling "ရာဇာဓိရာတ်" per '' Slapat Rajawan'' (Schmidt 1906: 118) and the 1485 Shwedagon Pagoda inscription (Pan Hla 2005: 368, footnote 1). Nai Pan Hla's ''Razadarit Ayedaw ...
reconquered the city.Fernquest 2006: 7–8 Though it was no longer the capital, the city remained an important trading port from the 14th century to the early 16th century.Myint-U 2006: 67


16th to 19th centuries

In 1541, King
Tabinshwehti Tabinshwehti ( my, တပင်‌ရွှေထီး, ; 16 April 1516 – 30 April 1550) was king of Burma (Myanmar) from 1530 to 1550, and the founder of the First Toungoo Empire. His military campaigns (1534–1549) created the largest ki ...
of Taungoo captured the fortified city, and utterly destroyed it, forever relegating it back to a backwater. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, Martaban was a strategic spot in a series of wars fought between
Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...
and
Siam Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...
.


Colonial Period

Martaban was captured by the British in the First Anglo-Burmese War of 1824–1826, but returned to Burmese administration after the war. It became the border town however as the entire Tenasserim coast from Mawlamyaing down became British territory. The town became part of British
Lower Burma Lower Myanmar ( my, အောက်မြန်မာပြည်, also called Lower Burma) is a geographic region of Myanmar and includes the low-lying Irrawaddy Delta ( Ayeyarwady, Bago and Yangon Regions), as well as coastal regions of the c ...
after the Second Anglo-Burmese War of 1852. Rudyard Kipling refers to Martaban in his poem "In the Neolithic Age": "And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban," suggesting he perceived it to be a place where immoral behavior was tolerated.


Geography

The Salween River flows through the town into the Bay of Martaban. The town's location is adjacent to the confluence of five rivers – the Salween, the Ataran, the Gyaing, the Dontami, and the Hlaingbwe – as they empty into the Gulf of Martaban. The town is also surrounded by hills that continue located in the Salween valley where various crops are cultivated.


Transport

Mottama was the terminus of the road and the railroad from
Yangon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...
, where the Thanlwin empties into the Gulf of Martaban in the
Andaman Sea The Andaman Sea (historically also known as the Burma Sea) is a marginal sea of the northeastern Indian Ocean bounded by the coastlines of Myanmar and Thailand along the Gulf of Martaban and west side of the Malay Peninsula, and separated fro ...
. Today Mawlamyaing Bridge has laid down a link from Mottama to Mawlamyaing and another city in the south Ye.


Notes


References

* * * {{s-end Populated places in Mon State Old Cities of Mon people Myanmar