Funan (Phnom Nokor) Ruins in Malaisia (Kedah)

 

Funan (Phnom Nokor) Ruins in Malaisia (Kedah) 

In northern Malaysia, just south of what is now the Thai border, was an ancient civilization at least 2000 years old. It is called Lembah Bujang by Malay archaeologists and translates as "Dragon Valley". This lost city was discovered by British Captain James Low and developed using a combination of archaeology, Chinese writings from a kingdom of the Red Earth and local legends describing Phnom Nokor (Funan)

2000 years ago, many city-states crossed the Strait of Malacca. Ships from India and China have traded among themselves and their crops have spread to the regions that are now Malaysia and Indonesia. Many of these Indian and Chinese cultures have continued to prosper and develop in the region and are still there today.

Lembah Bujang, however, was not a single lost city, but an entire Hindu and Buddhist kingdom. Their main religious structures were temples covered with brick platforms and tombs. These were called candis. They have made many sculptures and writings on stone, which have been found by archaeologists throughout Kedah province. Mentions of civilization have appeared in writings and legends recounting the Funan as far as China and India, with a possible mention by Ptolemy of Alexandria

Lembah Bujang is a curious city lost in the sense that it is still lost. Although it is one of the oldest monumental sites in all of Southeast Asia, it is rarely known. Tour diaries do not mention it, very few signed ones have shown the way and the Malay government does not seem interested in promoting it or even leaving archaeological work

Many candis sprinkled the landscape with clear hills, eclipsed in the green horizon by faded mountains. Do not have any false impression if you come here in search of grandiose ruins similar to the ruins of Angkor further north, which date from 1000 years later; these ruins are fascinating, but are not the monumental constructions of Angkorian cousins. But rather from their ancestor Chenla and Funan.

Lembah Bujang's candis today look like stone and brick platforms, sometimes with a brief driveway leading to them. Rebuilt, they appear as pagodas on a single level, almost related to a square stone gazebo. However, the wooden roofs, which once crowned these structures, have rotted for a long time.

Unfortunately, the Malaysian government does not allowing any archaeological expedition outside Malaysian archaeologists.

However, many Chinese records mentioned the territorial expansion of Fan shi Man (Kaudiniya1) throughout the Kotai, Khedah, Sumeru regions.