Shwedagon's gold covering is not a plating in the ordinary sense; large parts of it are periodically replaced entirely by donation.
More gold than a coat of paint
The stupa's surface is covered in gold leaf and, on its lower sections, gold plates, donated and renewed on an ongoing basis by devotees as an act of merit, a practice that means the pagoda's famous shine is maintained through continuous individual contribution rather than a single historical application. The spire is crowned with a metal umbrella-like structure, the hti, set with thousands of diamonds and other gems and topped by a single large diamond orb, replaced and re-consecrated during periodic renovations.
Rebuilt after every serious quake
The pagoda has been damaged by earthquakes repeatedly across its recorded history, with major rebuilding following incidents in the sixteenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that variously cracked or toppled its upper structure. Each rebuilding raised the stupa somewhat taller than before, so its current height of around ninety-nine metres is the outcome of accumulated reconstruction rather than a single original design.
Older than most surviving Buddhist monuments in the region
Archaeological opinion on the pagoda's founding date varies considerably, with tradition placing it well over two thousand years ago while archaeological evidence more securely supports a foundation sometime in the first millennium CE, a gap between devotional and archaeological chronology found at many long-venerated Buddhist sites.