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