Moidams

Definitely not the most spectacular display from the glorious Ahom dynasty and best combined with visits to other archaeological sites around the city of Sibsagar/Sivasagar. As mentioned in the other reviews, the necropolis are divided into 2 sites - Assam State and Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) thus separate fees. Each cost 250 rupees for foreigners and 20 for locals. There's a new visitor center at the Assam State controlled gate which has some information board that details the origin of the burial mounds, maps, and some info-graphics of the interiors which I think would be helpful how to tackle the site and to learn more about the history of the place. I wasn't asked for ticket at this point. The Charaideo poster photo of the mound with a restored arch gate and accessible interior (mound 38) can be found on the Assam State area. I look like a local and this was everybody's obsession by the amount of locals asking me where is that mound located and how to get there, equally confused as well with the separate entrances. I suggest visiting this site first if you come early especially on weekends when the site gets more local visitors and escape to the ASI area for peace and quiet. I visited on the month of January when was an unusual tiger sighting in the area so I ventured to the outer reaches of Assam State site, I was followed by guards who didnt want me go as far as …

The Moidams in Chairadeo, in the way they are presented at the moment, are a meagre testimony to the culture of Assam’s Ahom Dynasty. These rulers, originally coming from what is now Yunnan in China, left this region with monumental brick buildings of which many still stand. But “we” got a series of unexcavated tumuli that wouldn’t be out of place in Korea or Bahrain. Most of them are fairly small. On-site information is almost nonexistent: maybe 4 information panels with about 2 sentences written on each, and the tumuli are signposted as Maidam 32, Maidam 33, etc only. According to the AB evaluation, there should be elements of ancestor worship, sacred use of the surrounding landscape and small shrines on the top of the mounds. But most tumuli that I came across lacked those.

It is also weird that the management of the site (which is “just” one contiguous field of tumuli) is split between the ASI (national level) and the Assam Directorate of Archaeology. This means two entrances right next to each other, two entrance fees (250rs and 10rs) and a low stone wall to demarcate the two zones. At inscription, they promised that the wall “will soon be removed” and that they would work toward “joint management”. As of late November 2024, this clearly hasn’t happened yet.

At the ASI side, work is still ongoing to make the interior of one large tumulus accessible to the public. At the Assam State side, they have already …

Assam - and the whole of north-east India - is not only now a fairly remote corner of the subcontinent, it always has been. None of the great Indian empires reached here - neither Asoka nor the great Mughals conquered this region. From the 13th century until the beginning of the British Raj in 1828, the Ahom dynasty ruled over large and small parts of the tea belt.Traditionally and culturally the Ahoms are member of the Great Tai (Tai-Yai) group of peoples. In the year 1215 CE, the Ahoms migrated from Mong-Mao or Mong-Mao-Lung (present Dehong Dai Jingpho autonomous prefecture of South-Western Yunan province of Peoples Republic of China). They entered into the Upper Assam region of the Brahmaputra valley through Patkai Hills under the leadership of Mao-Shang prince, named Chau-lung Siu-ka-pha. He became the first king or Chao-pha or Swargadeo (Lord of the heaven) of the Ahom Dynasty, who established the first Ahom capital at Cherai-doi or Charaideo. By the end of the 17th century, the Ahoms had expanded their kingdom over the length and breadth of the Brahmaputra valley in their long 600 years of power, Chau-lung Siu-ka-pha’s able and intelligent successors like Suhungmung (CE 1497-1539), Suklengmung (CE 1539-1552), Pratap Singha (1603-1641), Gadadhar Singha (CE 1681-1696), Rudra Singha (CE 1696-1714), Shiva Singha (CE1714-1744), Pramatta Singha (CE 1744- 1751), Rajeswar Singha (CE 1751-1769), built a strong state in the Brahmaputra valley by defending it from the Islamic rullers including the mighty Mughals and the provincial rullers, which provided this …