Restoration of Ancient Damaged Pagoda, MaHarLawKaMhan Ku Pagoda in Twin-Ngyl Village, Tha-Beik-Kyin Township, Mandalay Division. (September 2013 to Jan 2014)
Concerning in this affected of the earthquake, registering 6.8 on the Richter scale that struck Sagaing and Mandalay Regions on 11 November 2012 in Myanmar, the Prince Claus Fund, in the context of Cultural Emergency Response Program, supported the Restoration of Ancient Damaged Pagoda, MaHarLawKaMhan Ku Pyaya in Twin-NgylVillage, Tha-Beik-Kyin Township with the collaboration of Myanmar Upper Land | culture & travel.
Myanmar Upper Land (MUL) operated in this project with the following objectives:
- To rebuild the damaged Pagoda back into its original state and clearing the debris.
- To restore the Buddha Image and Shrine.
- All this with traditional building materials, and apart from experienced engineers from elsewhere, with local and traditional artisans and locally available labour.
- To revitalize the revival of religious and social activities that binds the people in this area.
List of operations to achieve the objectives and modification.
- The debris was carefully cleaned in case of ancient relics, which are kept inside its body, may be found and should be put back in the restored pagoda. In the tradition of Buddhism people used to (and still do) enshrine items related to Buddha and the Buddhism inside the pagoda.
- The strength of the structure of the pagoda was brought back by steelworks and reinforced concrete at different levels all along the terraces of the pagoda horizontally, but also vertically.
- Conservative repair of the decaying bricks of the damaged pagoda was carried out to retain the authenticity. It was finished off by putting a thin cement layer over the bricks to match with a few existing sporadic layers of the damaged pagoda. Finally, lime based paints were used, plastic paints were not accepted.
