The Chaing Mai Museum/Thai Fine Arts Department excavation at Ban San Patong 2, Northern Thailand, November/December 1996.

Click on an image for a larger version.

A couple of years ago, some hard clay circles were found in a farmer's yard, in a village about 45 kilometres north of Chiang Mai. The local people were rather concerned, because when a small test excavation was made, the impression was gained that it might be the ankle of a large clay statue. In this devoutly Buddhist country, where there is a tradition of the Lord Buddha leaving his footprints behind as a message to his followers, and where spectacular antiquities are still frequently discovered, it's quite an understandable conclusion.
So when Sayan Prishanchit, who was then the director of archaeology at Chiang Mai museum, arrived to excavate what he, of course, knew would be pottery kilns, as shown by the circular clay chimneys, there was a religious and social problem as well as an archaeological one. The abbott from the local temple, a jovial and sensible churchman who took a great interest in the excavation, was able to ease some of the worries his flock had on the religious level. But just in case, the local people, whose Buddhism is tinged with a strong animist streak, built a small wooden spirit house on the site, and promised any ghosts or spirits that might be around that if they behaved themselves during the excavation they would be rewarded with a pigs head and other traditional offerings.
When I joined the team as a combination archaeological assistant and (I soon discovered) guinea pig in a scientific experiment to see just how much spicy northern Thai food a foreigner could handle, I was expecting a kiln, but it was still easy to understand the appeal of the "foot of a statue" theory. Just look at the first picture! The top of a chimney, or the leg of a giant statue? After we exposed the collapsed top of the kiln, along with a few pottery shards, it still looked rather like a foot, but by the time we got to the firebox at the bottom, and found chunks of charcoal- which indicate the kilns were about 500 to 600 years old, following tests at the University of Sydney-  even the doubters were convinced.

You can see in this picture the collapsed top of the kiln. It was very wide and flat- quite an engineering job! The big chunks in the lower right side of the picture are hardended earth, charcoal and slag from the interior of the kiln. It would have been cleared out after every firing. Entry would have been through the firebox at the base.
How was it built? The kiln may have originally been formed from bamboo, in a specially dug pit, and then covered with clay and fired, burning away the bamboo. Or maybe it was dug out of the ground and lined with a special clay that was then fired. The jury is still out. Anyway, it's not made of individual bricks- it's a kind of giant one-piece underground brick, about 10 centimetres thick. There were 5 kilns together in a group, showing 2 slight variations in design. There was not much pottery found with the kiln- maybe we did not excavate the rubbish heap, or maybe the kilns were not used for a long enough period to accumulate lots of waste. We did find one big glazed pot- which led to the question, had it been made there, or was it perhaps a water pot used by the potters on the job, a piece they planned to copy- or did it arrive after the period of use of the kilns, and just get covered up with the other debris? 
The Ban San Patong 2 kiln: elegant design, with a simple but functional shape.

 This picture shows Sayan and his team taking carbon samples toward the end of the excavation, and making a scale drawing- the white strings are to help the artist draw accurately to scale.
 If you're in Thailand, the kiln site is to be left open, and you can go and see it. Take the main road north from Chiang Mai, and a few kilometres past Mae Taeng, look for a brown signpost with white letters that says "To Ancient Kiln Site". Turn right, go 4 kilometres to the next sign, turn right again, and the site is 800 metres along through the village. If you get lost, ask the locals- but take your phrasebook! The Thai for kiln is "dao" (rhymes with "plough'').
PS: The sharp-eyed observer will have noticed that the top picture is a different kiln: there were two pits side by side; one with one kiln fully exposed, and the other with three partly exposed.



Making an offering at the spirit house at the conclusion of a successful archaeological excavation.

Thank you to the Thai Fine Arts Department, Sayan Prishanchit, his archaeology team and the hospitable people of Ban San Patong 2 for letting me take part in the dig.
 
 

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© Bob Hudson, 1996-2003.