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Irregular Earthworks in Eastern Siam: an air survey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

P. D. R. Williams-Hunt
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Abstract

During the war and in the immediate post-war period the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Force undertook a considerable air survey programme covering Burma, Siam and French Indo-China. In Siam the initial cover was restricted to large-scale (1:15,000 and better) photographs of towns, airfields and communications. Later a more ambitious programme of survey cover (scales 1 : 50,000 and 1 : 25,000 with a few towns and beaches at larger scale) was undertaken, and practically the whole of the country has been covered by air photographs of one scale or another.

It has been my privilege to serve with the R.A.F. in Siam on both ground and flying duties and, more recently, to be in a position to examine most of the photographs taken. A very considerable number of archaeological sites have come to light, many being noted for the first time ; and it is my intention in this initial paper to comment briefly on one particular type of earthwork which appears to have a limited distribution in eastern Siam. The air photographs are reproduced with the sanction of the Air Ministry.

It must be emphasized that although Siam, the meeting place of Indian and Chinese cultures, is rich in archaeological sites very little systematic work has yet been undertaken. On the one side the natural reluctance of the Siamese to disturb ancient sites and, on the other, comparative absence of trained archaeological research workers have been contributory factors. Detailed ground information generally is lacking and it follows that these notes are based on air photographic evidence, in most cases without ground checking, an impropriety of which the writer is only too well aware.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 24 , Issue 93 , March 1950 , pp. 30 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1950

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References

1 There is a great future for archaeological air work in Siam particularly in view of the difficult ground communications. To arouse interest the writer has prepared an article on the basic theory of archaeological air-photography which is being published in the journal of the Siam Society.

2 Of course there have been notable exceptions. The names of Coedes, Seidenfaden, le May and the late Prince Damrong may be cited ; but most of these men were primarily engaged in other walks of life, and they lacked the time and facilities to undertake the basic fieldwork so badly needed in Siam.

3 L. de Lajonquière, Inventaire Descriptif des Monuments du Cambodge (3 volumes, 1902-11) and Carte Archeologique du Cambodge, 1910.

4 Erik Seidenfaden, Complement a l’Inventaire Descriptif des Monuments du Cambodge, Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extreme-Orient, Tome XXII, 1922.

5 H. G. Quaritch Wales, The Exploration of Sri Deva, An Ancient Indian City in Indochina, Indian Art and Letters, vol. X, no. 2, 1936.

6 The writer has been in correspondence with Major Seidenfaden, now living in retirement in Denmark ; but although many useful suggestions have been offered no additional evidence as to the date of these sites is forthcoming. Seidenfaden suggests a parallel to some of these sites amongst the Lawa villages in the Mehongson district of northwest Siam, but these appear somewhat different from the sir. R. le May, an authority on Siamese art, has also examined some of the air-photographs but was unable to comment on the sites.

7 This site also goes by the name of Muang Nakhon Raxasima Kao.