The kingdom of . the eleventh century, thisbecomes associated with gray or greenish-gray sand-stone, used for statues, doorways, railings, anddecorative sculptures. A striking example of itsemployment in huge monoliths occurs in the gate-ways of the walled enclosure surrounding Wat PhrahPrang at old Swankhalok. From the twelfth cen-tury brickwork comes into evidence and soonprevails, forming in after ages the characteristic ofThai architecture, which elaborated and developedin brick, plaster, and mortar the old architecturalmotives just described. This being a deltaic country where
The kingdom of . the eleventh century, thisbecomes associated with gray or greenish-gray sand-stone, used for statues, doorways, railings, anddecorative sculptures. A striking example of itsemployment in huge monoliths occurs in the gate-ways of the walled enclosure surrounding Wat PhrahPrang at old Swankhalok. From the twelfth cen-tury brickwork comes into evidence and soonprevails, forming in after ages the characteristic ofThai architecture, which elaborated and developedin brick, plaster, and mortar the old architecturalmotives just described. This being a deltaic country where neither lateritenor other natural building materials are to be foundIn Southern ^^ccpt at the foot of the hills flankingSiam. both sidcs of the Menam valley, stone structures do not occur except on the eastern bor-ders on the one side, and in the province of Rajburion the west, and then but very sparsely and of verydiminutive sizes. The prevailing material is brick,and it is accordingly of this that we find the oldest. wh-l HQO < Archaeology 219 monuments built, though not unfrequently coarse-textured sandstone, either yellowish or reddish,more rarely gray, in color, occurs associated with itin terminals, wall crests, stelae (Wat Maha That atRajburi), in statues (gray, Phrah Prathom), and evenin square blocks (Wat Na Phrah That at Lopburi).The oldest monument of southern Siam appearsto be the original Phrah Prathom spire, now encasedin a recently erected and far more imposing one ofover three hundred feet in height. Nearly co-evalwith it is the neighboring Phrah Thon pagoda, alsoin brickwork ( 656). Then follow the remains ofancient temples at Lopburi, on the sites of whichBuddhist Wats now rise; and the ruins of primitivehermitages with debris of statues and stelae on theflanks of the Sabab Hill near Chanthabun, a citydating from the eighth or ninth century , if notearlier. At Ligor, Wat Na Phrah That, in thecentre of the city, and Wat Maheyong (Mahiyan-gana), on i
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookidkingdomofsia, bookyear1904
