Four villagers from Zedi Taung Village of Mrauk U Township found the gold artifacts inside an ancient pot, which has been buried on the hill near the old Danyawaddy city, while they were searching for a missing cow a few months ago.

After finding the gold artifacts, the villagers did not turn them in to the local authorities and they sold them in nearby gold shops instead. The authorities started the investigations after the information leaked out.

When Narinjara News contacted U Tun Thar Sein, a Pyithu Hluttaw MP (Member of Parliament) from Mrauk U Township who personally investigated the case on 5 February, he confirmed that five gold plates have been found and each plate is four inches long and two inches wide.

“When I personally went to investigate at the village, five gold plates were shown to me. The gold on two plates are raw gold. The other three plates are pure gold. I have been told that they were sold for three million kyats and the villagers divided the money among themselves. We still need to investigate whether there were more [artifacts] or not,” he said.

U Nyein Lwin, the director of Mrauk U’s Department of Archaeology, also confirmed that ancient artefacts have been found but he said he cannot name what kind of artefacts have been found yet since the officials from the department are still making the investigation.

While the gold artifacts have been speculated to be a royal sash, the gold are in the form of plates and they do not have any carving marks so the villagers need to be questioned whether it was a royal sash or not, according to U Than Myint from the Archeology Lovers Association.