Perserving Bagan

(above) How do you digitally record something as large or complex as the Myanmar temples, pyramids or even Mt. Rushmore? The CyArk field team begins work at each new location by registering points in space with a Leica GPS system. This ensures that each of the computer-generated models line up to be precise and geographically accurate.

Myanmar, located in Southeast Asia and bordered by India, Bangladesh, Laos, Thailand, and China, is usually in thought of in the West as a place of ethnic strife and civil wars.

Previously known as Burma, Myanmar is also a land of ancient history and serene beauty. There are nearly 2,200 ancient temples and pagodas that are dispersed across the landscape with some dating back to the 11th century.

(above) LiDar, light detection and ranging is a remote sensing method used to examine the surface of the Earth. Inside a temple in Bagan, a Faro scanner sends out millions of laser beams recording a digital map of data registering details down to 3mm accuracy.

On August 24, 2016 central Myanmar suffered a 6.8 magnitude earthquake, killing four people and damaging dozens of these ancient sites. Fortunately, months before the earthquake hit, CyArk, a non-profit, dedicated to digitally preserving at-risk World Heritage sites, had digitally archived many of these historic structures.

One year later, CyArk traveled back to Myanmar and the city of Bagan, to continue their initial documentation as well as observe through the new data, just how much the ancient constructions had been damaged.

(above, left) Kaw Moe, the guardian of one of the local temples lives in a small home he built himself beside the ancient temple.

Unmarried women walk through the old streets of Bagan as part of a tradition to find a husband.

(above, left) Phyochit and Pyaesone guard the temples of Old Bagan from people who might enter without first taking off their shoes – they make their living selling postcards to tourists to feed themselves and pay for their education.

Monks at a local monastery in Bagan line up for breakfast. In addition to tourism, old Bagan is a holy site for Buddhists around the world.

(above, right) Many of the ancient temples and pagodas have small crawl spaces leading to new floors or secluded rooms.