Ancient uncovers new evidence of Malaysia's multicultural history

The people who live in Bukit Choras, a community in northwest Malaysia surrounded by rice fields and a tall, green hill bearing the same name, were unaware, until six months ago, that they have lived next to an archaeological marvel their entire lives.  

A missing piece of Southeast Asian history was only discovered after a team of eleven scholars meticulously removed the dense undergrowth and secondary jungle from the top of the hill and scraped away at the dirt. 

In August of last year, the 1,200-year-old Buddhist stupa of Bukit Choras was found in Malaysia's Bujang Valley, a river basin dotted with numerous clusters of prehistoric structures in the northwest state of Kedah.  

The stupa is the best preserved in the country and experts say it could hold the key to Malaysia’s multicultural history.

“This site is an anomaly because it stands all by itself,” Nasha Rodziadi Khaw told news reporters. Nasha is the chief researcher of the team from the University of Science Malaysia’s Global Archaeology Research Centre (CGAR) in the northwestern island of Penang, who supervised the excavation between August 28 and September 12 last year. 

Bukit Choras is situated near the small town of Yan on Kedah’s southern coast about 370km north of the capital, Kuala Lumpur. 

As compared to the 184 archaeological sites that have previously been found in the Bujang Valley, which is located to the south, the stupa is situated alone on the northern side of Mount Jerai, which was formerly a cape and a crucial hub for seafaring traders who traveled as far north as the Arabian Peninsula to reach this region of the world.  

"The purpose of Bukit Choras remains unclear to us. We need to conduct additional excavation in order todetermine if it was a military fortress or a coastal trading outpost. Nasha and his colleagues will be working at the site through the first half of 2024. "Based on our preliminary findings, it shows plenty of similarities with other sites found in Java and Sumatra, Indonesia," Nasha stated. 

According to Nasha, Bukit Choras was first reported in 1850 by a British officer looking for treasures, and then, in 1937, briefly studied by another British scholar, HG Quaritch Wales. Wales undertook some minor excavations, but only reported finding a squarish Buddhist stupa, taking note of its measurements. He never provided any illustration or plate for the site. 

Nearly 50 years later, in 1984, the then-director of the Bujang Valley Archaeological Museum returned to Bukit Choras to do some site cleaning and documentation, but the site remained largely undisturbed.