Charaideo Maidams

Subject :History

Section :Art and Culture

Concept :

Assam’s pyramid-like structures known as moidams or maidams have met all the technical requirements of UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre.
Charaideo in eastern Assam has more than 90 moidams, the mound-burial system of the Ahoms who ruled large swathes of the present-day State and beyond for some 600 years until the advent of the British in the 1820s.
The nomination of Moidams met all of the technical requirements outlined in the Operational Guidelines concerning completeness check of nominations to the World Heritage List.

Moidams/Maidams

The Moidams (also Maidams) are the mound-burial system of the Ahom dynasty (13th century-19th century).
The mound-burial system of the royals of the Ahom dynasty in Assam’s Charaideo district can be likened to the royal tombs of ancient China and the Pyramids of the Egyptians Pharaohs (kings of ancient Egypt).
Charaideo, more than 400 km east of Guwahati, was the first capital of the Ahom dynasty founded by Chao Lung Siu-Ka-Pha in 1253.
Previously, those of the deceased with their paraphernalia (apparatus/ equipment) were buried.
However, after the 18th century, the Ahom rulers adopted the Hindu method of cremation, entombing the cremated bones and ashes in a Moidam at Charaideo.
The Moidams enshrine the mortal remains of Ahom royalty and are highly venerated.
With the shift of Ahom capital south and eastwards, Moidams have been seen in different parts of Northern Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Northern Burma, Southern China and Northeast India – together defining the region where Tai-Ahom culture prevailed.

Why is Charaideo known as ‘Pyramids of Assam’?

It contains sacred burial grounds of Ahom kings and queens and is also the place of the ancestral Gods of the Ahoms.
Some 42 tombs (Maidams) of Ahom kings and queens are present at Charaideo hillocks.
Architecture: It comprises a massive underground vault with one or more chambers having domical superstructure and covered by a heap of earthen mound and externally it appears a hemispherical