Key Information
Register:
InternationalYear of Inscription:
2015Type of Heritage:
ArchiveNominating Institution:
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar & The British Library
The Golden Letter of the Burmese King
In 1756 Myanmar king Alaungmintaya sent a diplomatic letter to King George II of Great Britain. This is not your run-of-the-mill, ink-on-paper dispatch. The message, in Myanmar language, was engraved on a rectangular plaque made of gold, with a line of 12 rubies embedded on each of two sides.
The letter lay in the vaults of Hanover’s Leibniz library for 250 years, as nobody could read its contents. The letter, which took three years to decipher, relates to an offer of trading cooperation between Burma (current day Myanmar) and England. In October 2015, the Golden Letter was added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, as a common heritage of Myanmar, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
