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Secrets of the Stones
A feature article about the mapping and research, as well as tourism development, of the megalithic mortuary jars at the so-called Plain of Jars in Laos.
“How does a civilisation that had such an impact on the landscape not leave more stories and legends, or more material evidence lying around?” muses the Belgian archeologist Julie Van Den Bergh. Scattered about on the crests of hills and mountains in northern Laos are hundreds of stone jars. Some weigh as much as six tonnes; most are between two and three metres high. And the mystery of their origins has researchers such as Van Den Bergh scratching their heads. “What were they [the jars’ makers] doing?” she asks. “For how long? And why did they vanish?”
It’s little wonder that a UNESCO report once described the so-called Plain of Jars as “one of the most intriguing and enduring puzzles of Southeast Asian prehistory”. Since 1998, the organisation has been working to help preserve, understand and promote this enigmatic archaeological wonder. And preparations are now under way for the plain to be inscribed on the World Heritage list, potentially setting off a tourism-led revolution in the local region, which is among Laos’s most deprived.
The jars were initially documented by the French archaeologist Madeleine Colani during the 1930s. She studied the three main sites, which together comprise more than 500 jars. Her theory about the jars’ function remains current among archaeologists: that they were used in mortuary rituals that could have developed as a cultural precursor of, or in parallel with, the Buddhist concept of reincarnation. The idea is that corpses would be placed in the jars until they decomposed to their ‘purity’ or ‘essence’. The body would then be cremated – Colani found a cremation cave at ‘Site 1’, where there are 334 jars – and the remains buried in a pot alongside certain personal or symbolic possessions.
Colani’s work was followed by decades of conflict, and then the isolation of the Communist years, which put a hiatus on research on the jars. Even after the region was opened up again during the 1990s, the detritus of the bombing campaign carried out by the US military during the war with Vietnam made research difficult and dangerous (see An explosive legacy).
In 1998, UNESCO began a collaborative project with Lao archaeologists to preserve and study the jars. Before the project began, no-one even knew where the jars came from, but the fi rst extensive survey of Xieng Khoung province revealed 15 jar-making sites.
The evidence from these sites suggested that the jars were carved from huge boulders using hammer and chisel. “It could have taken 30 days to make a jar,” says Khamman Phimmasan, the offi cial in charge of historical heritage in the province. They were then transported eight kilometres to Site 1. “The great mystery is how and why the jars were carried so far from the source,” Khamman continues. “It’s a formidable haul.” The newly discovered sites have now been placed within a geographic information system that plots their positions on a map of the province. Linking the dots has revealed patterns that might indicate the scatter of early settlements or possible trade routes.
“We know that the plain was a strategic trade hub at the time, along a trade route that extended from India to China,” says Lao archaeologist Samlane Luangaphay. “We also know that today’s inhabitants are a new people, and the culture at the time was different and complex. Now we need to do more extensive research to come up with more answers about the who, why, when and how.”
Research carried out under the auspices of the UNESCO programme is providing new insights into the jars and their makers. An ongoing survey has doubled the number of previously recorded sites, with the tally now standing at 1,900 jars in 52 clusters, as well as the 15 jar making sites. “Some of the sites are very remote,” says Rik Ponne, a UNESCO consultant. “In some cases we had to trek into the mountains for two days, so I’m sure we’ll fi nd more jars.”
Khamman worked with Thongsa Sayavongkhamdy, Laos’s pre-eminent archaeologist, during the late 1990s to excavate burial sites dotted about the jar fi elds. “We found bones and other organic material, as well as bracelets and necklaces made of glass, a smoking pipe and an earthenware vase,” he tells me. “However, it’s uncertain whether these burials took place at the same time the jars were made.”
This is because carbon dating has placed this material well outside Colani’s timeline for the jars’ creation. Extrapolating from other cultural and development parallels in the region, Colani suggested that the jars were created sometime between 500 BC and 500 AD. Yet one of Thongsa’s burials has been dated to 3,500–4,000 BC, and another to as recently as 1,000 AD. Analysis by Van Den Bergh, a UNESCO consultant, of some charcoal material from another burial also registered a date of 3,000 BC. Van Den Bergh is still unclear as to just what these results mean. “Are the secondary burials older?” she asks. “It’s uncertain how the burials relate to the jars; there are too many unknowns. We need more dateable material, and to review excavated material in comparison with new research in the region.”
Some of this new research is to take place at Ban Phakeo, one of the most promising new discoveries – a cluster of 416 jars, the largest ever recorded, set at the crest of a desolate mountain. Situated three hours’ walk from the nearest road and half an hour from a small Hmong village, the site itself is surreal, with hundreds of mostly intact jars scattered in hushed forest. It’s an idyllic resting place for the spirits of the dead, and the Hmongs believe so too: they’ve been burying their dead in among the jars for decades.
The Hmongs came to these mountains about 200 years ago, and they believe, as do other local inhabitants, that the jars were commissioned by a powerful ruler for the fermentation and storage of Lao Khao, the vernacular rice whiskey. As such, they didn’t recognise the jars’ spiritual auspiciousness and have broken many of them up to cover their graves and used them to sharpen their machetes. At the village – which is made up of 28 households – I noticed two stones fashioned from jars being used to grind corn for pigs. UNESCO is now paying the villagers to stop the breakage and to keep the vegetation trimmed.
As well as co-ordinating heritage management and research, UNESCO is also assisting the local authorities with tourism development. Five new pilot projects have been launched, all based on clusters of natural, cultural and historical attractions.
The ultimate goal, however, is World Heritage listing. “At present we’re helping the authorities prepare a nomination dossier to achieve World Heritage status,” explains Ponne. “We need more research and we need to implement a comprehensive management plan to ensure that the heritage sites, once listed, are actually preserved.”
The Ban Phakeo area features on one of UNESCO’s five tourist circuits. It’s indeed one of Asia’s most spectacular new tourist sights, holding a triple allure: the villages, the trekking and the jars themselves. Foreign visitor numbers have already jumped from 15,000 in 2004 to 24,000 last year. If World Heritage status is achieved, it’s expected to open the tourist floodgates by 2008 or 2009. The many archaeologists working among the jars are surely hoping that by then, they will have some more definite information to put on the inevitable interpretative displays.
Climate Change and Civilisations
A vast plateau surrounded by high, contorted mountains, the Plain of Jars held great strategic importance during the war in Vietnam. It was a stronghold of the Pathet Lao and a staging post of the Vietcong, and suffered a deluge of US bombs as a result – part of the heaviest aerial bombardment in the history of warfare. A staggering 13,000 sorties were dispatched every month, an assault so fierce that the 1,500 buildings of the then provincial capital were flattened in one day.
“It was a very hard time,” says Lao archaeologist Khamman Phimmasan, who was a young man living and studying in caves during the period.
The bombing’s legacy is still explosive. “About 20,000 people have been maimed or killed since the end of the war,” says Dave Davenport, the local leader of British NGO the Mines Advisory Group (MAG). “And that figure is just for the people who turned up at hospitals.” MAG is one of two organisations – the other is local group UXO-LAO – that have been clearing unexploded bombs in Laos for several years.
Farmers strike bombs when ploughing their fields, children blow themselves up when playing with cluster bombs and many people get hurt when scavenging for bombs for scrap metal – a 500-pound (227-kilogram) bomb can fetch US$21, a lucrative prospect in a country where US$1 a day is considered a good salary.
“The level of contamination is extremely high,” Davenport says. “For example, recently, we removed 4,500 items from just one village.” MAG has also recently finished clearing the main jar sites, unearthing a 250-pound bomb from near a jar at Site 2. The effects of the war have made Xieng Khoung’s 200,000 inhabitants the poorest in Laos. But now the tide is changing. A steady increase in tourism is fuelling something of a building boom, and improving infrastructure and impending World Heritage listing have instilled a palpable hope that the province will regain the prosperity enjoyed by its ancient inhabitants.
(C) Victor Paul Borg 
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