Maidams: Burial mounds of Ahom Dynasty in Assam inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage site

This was announced at the 46th meeting of the World Heritage Committee of the UNESCO in New Delhi today.

Guwahati: Maidams, the burial mounds of Ahom Dynasty (1228-1826), often compared with the Egyptian pyramids and the royal graves in ancient China, situated in Charaideo district in eastern Assam, was inscribed as the UNESCO World Heritage Site on Friday.

The mounds that reflect the unique funerary practices of the Tai-Ahom community, was India's official nomination for the UNESCO's World Heritage Site tag under cultural sites category.

This was announced at the 46th meeting of the World Heritage Committee of the UNESCO in New Delhi on Friday. Maidams became the 43rd World Heritage site in India and third in Assam.

Situated on the foothills of the Patkai Ranges in eastern Assam, the burial mounds are considered sacred by the Tai-Ahom and reflect their unique funerary practices. The Tai-Ahom people arrived in Assam in the 13th century, establishing Charaideo as their first capital and the site of the royal necropolis. For 600 years, from 1228 till Assam's annexation to the British through the Treaty of Yandabo in 1826, the Tai-Ahoms constructed moidams, or "home-for-spirit," using natural elements like hills, forests, and water to create a sacred geography.

"Maidams are elevated, often double-storied, entered through an arched passage. Atop the hemispherical mud-mound layers of bricks and earth is laid, where the base of the mound is reinforced by a polygonal toe-wall and an arched gateway on the west. Eventually the mound would be covered by a layer of vegetation, reminiscent of a group of hillocks, transforming the area into an undulating landscape," UNESCO said in a document.

"Excavation shows that each vaulted chamber has a centrally raised platform where the body was laid. Several objects used by the deceased during his life, like royal insignia, objects made in wood or ivory or iron, gold pendants, ceramic ware, weapons, clothes to the extent of human beings (only from the Luk-kha-khun clan) were buried with their king."

Believing their monarchs to be divine, the Tai-Ahom developed a distinct funerary tradition of constructing moidams for royal burials. These mounds were initially built with wood and later with stone and burnt bricks, as documented in the Changrung Phukan, the Ahoms' traditional canonical literature.

"A matter of immense joy and pride for India," Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X, soon after the UNESCO's official announcement.

Union Minister of Culture and Tourism, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said that the recognition brings global attention to the unique 700-year-old mound burial system of the Ahom Kings at Charaideo, highlighting the rich cultural heritage of Assam and Bharat.

The property and buffer zones are jointly protected and managed by the Archaeological Survey of India and the state department of archaeology under the Ancient Monuments and Sites Remains Act’ 1958 (Amended in 2010) and by the Assam Ancient Monuments and Records Act 1959 respectively.

The Moidams of Charaideo remains the only area where the largest concentration of these vaulted-mound burial chambers exist together, demonstrating a grand royal burial landscape unique to the Tai Ahoms, the World Heritage Convention of the UNESCO said in its website.