via The Independent, 28 January 2021: Story on the recently-discovered ruins of a Nanzhao-period Buddhist monastery in Yunnan, China.
Archaeologists are unearthing the secrets of a long-lost medieval empire.
A major new discovery in South West China is, for the first time, revealing the extraordinary grandeur of a vanished kingdom, whose armies conquered huge swathes of southeast Asia.
Chinese archaeologists, excavating in the ruins of the empire’s capital, have discovered one of the largest medieval Buddhist monasteries ever found anywhere in the world. Artefacts unearthed in the excavation suggest that it was used as a sacred last resting place for some of the empire’s rulers.
Located in the capital of a medieval imperial state, known as the Nanzhao Empire, it was a vast complex consisting of at least 14 buildings, almost certainly constructed by the ruling dynasty.
Evidence unearthed at the site, near the town of Dali in China’s Yunnan Province, suggests that the monastery was probably built in the mid-to-late ninth century – shortly after the empire’s peak.
This long-forgotten highly militarised imperial state was important in world history because it conquered large areas of what are today. Vietnam, Myanmar (Burma), Laos, and Thailand (as well, as parts of the Chinese provinces of Guizhou and Sichuan).
Source: A vanished empire: Major new discovery exposes long-lost medieval kingdom | The Independent
