“Mystery and Diversity at the Plain of Jars, Laos”. a Talk and Presentation by Lia Genovese 1.1

Informal Northern Thai Group Bulletin March 31, 2013 Note: This version is without pictures 1. MINUTES of the 358th Meeting, March 12, 2013 : “Mystery and Diversity at the Plain of Jars, Laos”. A Talk and Presentation by Lia Genovese 1.1. Attendance list. 1.2. The text of the talk. 1.3. Presentation of a Basic List of Sources on the Plain of Jars in three academic libraries in Chiang Mai. 2. NEXT INTG MEETING : 359th Meeting : 9 April 2013 : “Tai Khuen culture, Burmanization and the 600th Anniversary of Songkran in Keng Tung”. A Talk by Klemens Karlsson, Head of the Department of Publication Infrastructure at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm Sweden. 3. FUTURE INTG MEETINGS. 4. ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE GATE THEATER GROUP 5. INTG CONTACTS. 1. MINUTES of the 358th Meeting, March 12, 2013 : “Mystery and Diversity at the Plain of Jars, Laos”. A Talk and Presentation by Lia Genovese 1.1. PRESENT : Hans Bänziger, Saengdao Bänziger, Dianne Barber-Riley, Mark Barber-Riley, Daniel Bellamy, John W. Butt, John Cadet, Roy Clark, Pat Corey, Kathie Culhane ???, Bernard Davis, Peter Dawson, Harry Deelman, Margaret Deelman, Robert Dubiel, Dorothy Engmann, Eric Eustache, Rudolph Ganz, Deborah Greenaway, Oliver Hargreave, John Henderson, Joachim Hincke, Penamyai (?) Hincke, Celeste Holland, Janet Illeni, Jacques ???, Peter K. Pollak, Ping Pong, Judy Reid, Lindy Santitharangul, Somchai Santitharangul, Sukanya Muenphomphrai, Thipsuda Jindaplook, Willem van Gogh, Edward van Tuyll, Vijaya Makeaw, Renee Vines, Rebecca Weldon. A total of 38 at least. 1.2. The 358th Talk, March 12, 2013 : “Mystery and Diversity at the Plain of Jars, Laos”. A Talk and Presentation by Lia Genovese. I thank Ms. Rebecca Weldon Sithiwong and Dr. Louis Gabaude for inviting me to present aspects of my doctoral research. INTRODUCTION My talk this evening will begin with a geographical context, by placing Laos on the map, including details of Xieng Khouang Province and its eight districts. Next, I will provide some quantitative data from my Database, followed by a summary of current theories on the function and age of the jars. I will then provide a brief summary of the life and work of Madeleine Colani, the only researcher, to date, to have carried out substantial archaeological fieldwork at the Plain of Jars. The next section will illustrate examples of mystery and diversity at the Plain of Jars, from buried jars to iconographic details which recall motifs in Island Southeast Asia. My preliminary conclusions will bring this talk to an end. MAPS Laos is a landlocked country (Map 1) bordering China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar. Xieng Khouang Province, where the majority of the jars are found, shares domestic borders with the provinces of Hua Phan, Luang Prabang, Vientiane, Xaisomboun and Bolikhamxai, and an international border with Vietnam’s Nghe An Province. Most of the archaeological sites in Xieng Khouang Province (Map 2) are positioned within North 19 and East 103, with a few sites in East 102, towards Luang Prabang Province. East 103 Map 1 – Laos and its 17 provinces. Map 2 – The eight districts of Xieng Khouang Province. Mapsofworld.com Map drawn by Lia Genovese. DATABASE The total number of sites at 2012 stands at 76, of which 12 quarries and 12 mixed quarry-site. District officials have reported several new sites, which await documentation. Over 2,000 jars and 200 discs have been counted at these 76 sites. The smallest site can hold one single jar (Sites 19, 37, 41, 53, 54, 56, 58, 59, 63 and 74), while the largest can house more than 400 jars (Site 52/Ban Phakeo group of sites). Paek District accounts for 43 percent of all jars in the Province (865 mostly sandstone jars), followed by Phaxay (380 sandstone jars), Khun (308 mostly granite jars), Kham (287 limestone, conglomerate and breccia jars) and Phoukood (177 sandstone jars). As more sites are discovered, it is the diversity in jar shape and decorations that attract increasing interest, dispelling the notion of the Plain of Jars as a vast necropolis populated by barrel-shaped jars randomly scattered over the slopes of hills in a remote corner of Laos. Sandstone is the most prevalent rock, found in Paek, Phoukood and Phaxay. Granite is found in Khun, while limestone, breccia and conglomerate are found in Kham. At 2012, the districts of Nong Hét, Thathom and Mokmai remain largely undocumented, although deposits of jars have been reported in recent years. Eight of the 76 sites have been cleared of UXO (unexploded ordnance) from the 1964-73 conflict, when the Viet Minh-backed Pathet Lao fought against American-backed Royal Lao Government forces allied to a Hmong army led by Gen. Vang Pao (1929-2011).1 The decontaminated sites (Map 3) are: Sites 1, 21 and 52 (Paek), Site 25 (Phoukood), Site 16 (Khun), Site 23 (Kham) and Sites 2 and 3 (Phaxay). A visit to a few of these sites will be sufficient for an appreciation of the stone jar culture of Xieng Khouang, particularly since Sites 1 and 52 combined hold in excess of 700 jars and 100 discs. During the conflict, vast areas of Laos were carpet-bombed (Fig. 1) and it is estimated that around thirty percent of the ordnance failed to detonate, turning into UXO, the deadly legacy that continues to maim and kill children and adults alike.2 No jar sites can be open to the public until the ground is decontaminated and the necessary tourist infrastructure has been upgraded or developed from scratch. THE JARS OF XIENG KHOUANG - THEORIES For the people of Xieng Khouang, the jars are gigantic cups linked to a legend with roots in an historic event. Legend recounts that the megalithic jars were created around the seventh century CE, during the reign of Khun Chuong,3 a benevolent king who defeated an oppressive ruler when Xieng Khouang was a Vietnamese dominion. The gigantic jars were sculpted for the fermentation of rice wine, which was drank, in great quantities, by the army and the people over a seven-month long celebration. This legend is often accompanied by another myth, that the jars were fashioned not from natural rock, but by a boiled mixture of buffalo skin, brown sugar, sand and gravel. A practical function has been suggested, where the jars are used as post-death containers for the distillation of the body, akin to the treatment reserved for deceased “Thai, Cambodian and Laotian royalty during the early stages of the funeral rites”.4 However, as will be detailed later, this theory runs into difficulties for jars with limited internal capacity, like those in Phoukood District (Sites 27 and 55, for instance) and, to a lesser extent, in the Ban Phakeo group (Site 52) in Paek District. To date, there has been no research specifically aimed at locating settlements near the jars. Isolated jars have been found in remote and inaccessible corners of Xieng Khouang Province. Clay pots containing human remains – mostly teeth and bones – have been found buried around the jars. To date, a whole skeleton has not been found. Ashes from cremated remains were discovered by Colani inside the stone jars. The objects accompanying the burials are often relatively modest, pointing to communities for whom the Plain of Jars may have been a ritually sacred expanse of land with undulating hills, mountain slopes, rivers, spring water stations, abundant sources of stone and, above all, a place associated with ancient burials. Regional burial ground is the interpretation given to a recent discovery in southwest Cambodia, part of an area collectively known as the Cardamom Mountains: “The presence of five wooden coffins, all of different shapes, suggests they were brought in individually, from other regions, for burial”.5 One little-researched area concerns the makers of the jars. It is commonly believed that the monolithic jars of Xieng Khouang were carved by an Austroasiatic group displaced by Tai settlers from 500 CE onwards, the start of their journey west and south of their area of origin in the Tai highlands of northwest Vietnam, northeast Laos and southern China. Colani proposed that the jars were erected by caravaneers of the salt trade traversing the Tran-ninh plateau of Xieng Khouang, from Sa-huýnh to Assam, northeast India. This theory rested on her conviction that the Plain of Jars functioned as the central node in a chain of three rings, with Assam as the westernmost point and Sa-huýnh as the easternmost node. 1 Born in Xieng Khouang’s district of Nong Hét, his real name was Vaj Pov. He died in the USA in January 2011. 2 At June 2012, MAG (Mines Advisory Group) has cleared more than 38.7 million m2 of suspect land in Laos, destroying 161,802 items of UXO. Further details and updates from: http://www.maginternational.org. 3 Also spelt Jeung, Jeuang, Chuang, Chueang, or Cheuang. He was Khmer according to some accounts but for others he was a member of the Kmhmu, the largest Mon-Khmer ethnic group dwelling in the highlands of northern Indochina. 4 Rogers et al. 2003: 473. 5 Duggleby 2012: 98. MADELEINE COLANI – PIONEER OF THE PLAIN OF JARS Madeleine Colani was born on 13 August 1866 in Strasbourg, Alsace, the daughter of Dr. Timothée (1824-1888), a French biblical scholar, and Josephe Maria Gauthey (1843-?), a housewife from Seville, Spain. Her childhood was marred by war, which erupted exactly on her fourth birthday, 13 August 1870, when Prussia invaded Alsace.6 Under the terms of the Treaty of Frankfurt, signed in May 1871, Prussia annexed Alsace and part of Lorraine but the Colani family, unwilling to assume German citizenship, left Alsace to preserve their French identity.

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