Plain of Jars - Laos Stonehenge

[schadeaux]

By Richard C. Paddock

Los Angeles Times

The Plain of Jars - the biggest weighed more than 6 tons.

THONG HAI HIN Laos November 13, 2003 (LA Times) - The first time Sousath Phetrasy saw the huge stone jars scattered in a grassy field, he was entranced.

Carefully avoiding old unexploded bombs in the ground, the Laotian businessman walked among hundreds of the ancient, lichen-covered containers, each one large enough to hold a person. The biggest weighed more than 6 tons.

From that moment in 1990, the jars became his obsession. He quit his state job and moved to northern Laos to be near them.

Over the next seven years, he spent his spare time clearing unexploded bombs, grenades and mortar shells -- leftovers from the United States' 1960s-era "secret war" in Laos -- from three jar fields. His only tools were an old metal detector and a long knife.

"I wanted to open the mysteries of the jars, the power of the jars, and let people feel that they have come to a holy place," said Sousath, now 43 and the owner of a tourist hotel. "This is the brother of Stonehenge and Easter Island."

Perhaps 2,000 years old, the relics on the plateau known as the Plain of Jars are one of the oldest -- and unexplained -- archeological wonders of Southeast Asia.

They have survived looters, the elements and American bombs, but for decades were largely forgotten in the chaos and conflict that swept Laos.

Archeologists say there are thousands of jars in this part of northern Laos. The believe that the jars were used to hold bodies for months or years while the remains decomposed.

The bones were later removed, cleaned and buried or, in some cases, cremated. Known as secondary burial, the practice is typical of the Bronze and Iron ages and still occurs in the region.

But experts know little about the people who made them.

Laos' Communist government reluctantly agreed to Sousath's proposal to open the jar sites to foreigners -- then made him head of the local tourism agency. He built his small hotel in the nearby town of Phonsavan and began giving tours of the fields he helped clear.

Most of the jars are on tranquil, grassy knolls above villages and rice fields. Typically, the knolls have sweeping views of the countryside. Cows sometimes wander among the jars, grazing on the grass.

Today, a few thousand intrepid travelers from around the world make the trek each year to see the jars in this remote province where craters from American bombs still scar the countryside and farmers use old bomb casings to make pigsties and storage sheds.

But even Sousath has misgivings about opening the sites to tourists, who sometimes clamber onto the jars or pick away at the worn, sedimentary stone.

"The jars are holy, but people climb on them," he complained. "People want to damage them. We need to educate them and tell them how to behave."

Richard Engelhardt, a UNESCO archeologist based in Bangkok, Thailand, who is heading a United Nations project to map the location of the jars, said the Plain of Jars is "probably the most important Iron Age site in Southeast Asia."

So far, the group has documented more than 300 jar fields scattered across the plain -- 10 times the number previously known.

eXoNews

[Scorpius]

Interesting Column, very interesting. However how was such an enormous jar carved out and carried to that area? Or were these jars built on the spot using the rocks that had originally stood there?

[Pendekar Timur]

Very-very interesting...

and i think its has a related with Angkor Wat-Cambodia.

P/S-Angkor Wat-Considered by many to be one of the most inspired and spectacular monuments ever conceived it was built by Suryavarman II to honour Vishnu and for use as his funerary temple.

[rickjones]

Hi I'm Rick(ricklam@hotmail.com

I noticed your write up on the Jars and thought how rare it is to find anyone who has any knowlege of them. So I enjoyed what you posted. I actually spend a couple of days exploring the Plain of Jars and the area a few years back. Being on location it was exciting to theorise (my spelling in aweful) on the origins and the uses of the Jars.

take care

Rick