Xieng Khouang Archives

Dangers existing on Plain of Jars in Xieng Khouang (Laos), make scientists not able to clear up all mysteries of thousands of ancient stone jars.

The Plain of Jars dated from Iron Age (500 BC – 500) and included at least 3000 giant stone urns dating back 2500 years. Most of them were made of sandstone while the other ones were formed of granite and harder limestone. Noticeably, some attain enormous dimension – up to 3m tall, 1m wide – and weigh several tons.

Because all jars have rim at mouth, archaeologists supposes that, initially they had lids all. Although a few stone lids were acknowledged, it was much likely that ancient people used wood or rattan to hide the mouth of jars.

Ancient people created the jars with a certain standard of understanding about materials and a relevant method. It is much likely that they employed iron chisels to whittle though there is not any evidence to recognize this supposition. Scientists know very little about the author of this vast plain of jars. The jars themselves also do not provide many suggestions about the origin as well as the purpose of using them.

According to the indigenous legend, the jars were constructed by giant people because their king need to find a place to brew potent rice wine. This amount of wine were used to celebrate the victory of the kind King Khun Jeuam against the cruel King Chao Angka.

Some scientists hold their opinion that the jars were utilized to store rain water in the monsoon season. However, most of archeological experts believe that the Plain of Jars served as a prehistoric funeral site. The excavation of Laotian and Japanese archaeologists in many years helped to consolidate this hypothesis as they detected many human bones, burial objects and pottery around the urns.

Following to most of archaeologists, the jars were to place corpses. This belief is supported by a traditional mortuary custom in Lao and Thailand. Soft tissues on bodies put on the jars would decompose and corpses would be dry gradually before being moved to other locations to be cremated. Subsequently, ashes were contained inside vessels or buried in holy places.

History related that Thai royals, for instance, had their bodies cremated many months after death, with their remains being transferred from urn to urn until the eventual day of incineration, in the belief that the soul gets through a gradual transformation, quitting the earth and entering the spiritual world. During this practice, every jar was thought to be cover by a lid on top until the body was absolutely decayed.

Archaeologists have not given the final conclusion yet. However, their work of researching has been slow down because this is one of the most dangerous archaeological areas in the world. About 80 million bombs failing to detonate upon landing made the Plain of Jars become the world’s most heavily bombed place per capita. The bombings contaminated the area and made much of the land surrounding the Plain of Jars unusable.

Today, thousands of unexploded bombs, mines and other kinds of ammunition have still been scattered over the plain, constituting over 35% area of the whole province, which continue to threaten the life of 200,000 residents who are inhabiting in Xieng Khouang. Around the plain, traces of damage was obvious everywhere, with hollows on the ground and many of the stone jars cracked, broken or destroyed.

In spite of Laos’ most impressive megalithic attraction, this area is completely devoid of travelers. Most sections of the plain is off-limits to the public. Among the 60 sites, travelers is allowed to visit only 7.

So far, the query: “Who put them there, and what were they for?” has been still a secret. Perhaps war and time took away opportunities to understand these wonderful mysteries.

Learn more: