"Pagan, today a small town of perhaps 2,000 inhabitants, was the capital of the first Burmese kingdom for about 250 years between the mid-eleventh and the end of the thirteenth centuries. During this period, more than 2,500 religious monuments, mostly Buddhist temples, stupas and monasteries, were constructed in and around the city. At the end of the thirteenth century, the city ceased to be a political center, having falled victim to demographic disruptions, economic exhaustion, and military pressure from the Mongols, though it kept its status as a sacred center and a place of learning until the end of the last Burmese kingdom..."