Anawrahta Conquers Thaton and Transforms Burma

May 17, 1057

After a three-month siege, King Anawrahta's forces breached the walls of Thaton on the seventeenth of May, capturing the Mon kingdom's royal family, its monks, and - crucially - its copies of the Theravada Buddhist canon. Thirty thousand captives, including artisans and scribes, were marched north to Pagan. The conquest fused Mon literary and artistic traditions with Burmese military power, creating a civilization whose temple-studded plains still astonish today.