Scientists unearth Myanmar’s forgotten royals

In a modest Yangon apartment, the granddaughter of Myanmar’s last king lives poor and unrecognised by her neighbours- a far cry from the power and riches of her ancestor.

Princess Hteik Su Phaya Gyi said the childhood days when her family had a bevy of servants and retained some of its royal status were now a distant memory.

The British colonial regime dethroned her grandfather King Thibaw in 1885 and later the military junta, which ruled the country for decades, kept the family out of the public eye.

‘They didn’t want us to be somebody,’ said the silver-haired princess, swathed in a shimmering purple shawl worn especially for the rare interview. ‘I have lived as an ordinary person for 60 years,’ she told a news agency.

‘Of course I repent a little over the glorious times that we had when we were young,’ she said, displaying a lively wit undimmed by her 90 years.

The demolition of the monarchy, at the end of the third and final war that brought the nation firmly under the colonial yoke, smashed centuries of royal rule in the country then called Burma. Thibaw and his wife, Queen Supayalat, were swiftly and unceremoniously removed from Myanmar and deposited in the small Indian seaside town of Ratnagiri.

Thibaw died in India aged 56 in 1916, shortly after suffering a heart attack, and the family eventually fractured.

Some settled in India while others made their lives in Myanmar, which remained part of the British empire until 1948 and came under junta rule in 1962.

A cloak of silence was thrown over the monarchy by successive Myanmar regimes that viewed it as a potential rival, while army leaders sought to evoke much earlier warrior royals.

‘Most of Myanmar has forgotten about the king,’ said deputy culture minister and royal historian Than Swe, who has spearheaded a campaign to return Thibaw’s body to Myanmar. A visit by President Thein Sein to Thibaw’s tomb in Ratnagiri during an official trip to India last December reignited interest in Myanmar’s monarchy.

But Than Swe said Myanmar’s government had more immediate priorities, such as the sweeping reforms implemented since junta rule ended in 2011. Queen Suphayalat’s tomb in Yangon is barely marked. When the family tried to place a simple sign there to inform visitors of the pedigree of the occupant, the former junta immediately removed it.