Researchers found a 1,200-year-old Buddhist stupa including two Buddha stucco statues in good condition in Malaysia’s Bujang Valley.
If you thought everything in Bujang Valley was destroyed, you were right until now. In August 2023, a team of 11 researchers discovered a 1,200-year-old Buddhist stupa at Bukit Choras in Malaysia’s Bujang Valley in northwest Kedah.
The discovery of the stupa is exciting as it’s the best preserved in the country and experts say it could hold the key to Malaysia’s multicultural past, especially Ancient Kedah’s history.
Dr Nasha Rodziadi Khaw, the chief researcher of the team from the University of Science Malaysia’s Global Archaeology Research Centre (CGAR) in Penang, said the site is an anomaly because it stands all by itself.
According to Al Jazeera, the stupa is isolated on the northern side of Mount Jerai unlike the 184 archaeological sites discovered in the Bujang Valley.
Nasha said the stupa measured about nine metres long and the most important discovery was two stucco statues of Buddha in good condition that have not been found in the area before.
According to Nasha, stucco was thought to be only found in Java and Sumatra in Indonesia, and India, at the time.
The two Buddha statues feature an inscription in Pallava, the language of the Pallava Dynasty that ruled in South India between the 3rd and 8th century CE.
The statues also have architectural features resembling the other artefacts from the Srivijaya kingdom that prospered between the 7th and 11th centuries CE, in an area from southern Thailand, through the Malay peninsula and into Java.
Currently, the statues are being studied and restored at CGAR in Penang.
