Sukhothai Historical Park
- UNESCO World Heritage
Interesting facts
- Inside the thick walls of Wat Si Chum's mandapa runs a narrow hidden passage lined with more than 50 engraved slate slabs illustrating the Buddha's previous lives.
- At Wat Chang Lom, 32 sculpted elephants stand around the base of the stupa, which measures about 18 metres on each side.
- Wat Saphan Hin, on a hill west of the old city, is reached by a path of stone slabs and holds a standing Buddha 12.5 metres tall.
- Wat Traphang Thong keeps a Buddha footprint carved in dark grey stone in 1359 under King Lithai, and is the only temple in the park still home to monks.
- Archaeologists have found 49 kilns around the old city, where Sukhothai potters fired glazed stoneware inspired by Chinese ceramics for trade across Asia.
- Each side of Wat Chetuphon's mandapa shows the Buddha in a different posture: walking on the east, seated on the north, standing on the west and reclining on the south.
- An eight-metre bronze Buddha known as Phra Si Sakyamuni once stood at Wat Mahathat and was later moved to Wat Suthat in Bangkok.
- Wat Asokaram was founded in 1399 by a queen mother, the widow of King Lue Thai, and is crowned by a five-tiered stepped stupa.
- The Ramkhamhaeng inscription found in the park was added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in 2003.
- Tradition dates the founding of Sukhothai to around 1238 or 1239, when the chief Pho Khun Bang Klang Hao became its first king, Si Inthrathit.
Why it is worth it
Sukhothai Historical Park preserves the ruins of the first capital of a Thai kingdom, a city that flourished in the 13th and 14th centuries and whose name is usually translated as "dawn of happiness". Its temples, set among moats, ponds and lawns in the plains of north-central Thailand, show the moment when a distinctly Thai style of art emerged from Khmer, Mon and Sri Lankan influences. The park was opened in 1988 and inscribed by UNESCO in 1991, together with the related sites of Si Satchanalai and Kamphaeng Phet.
The walled city is a rectangle about 2 km by 1.6 km, with a gate in each side, and the wider park covers about 70 square kilometres with nearly 200 ruins. The oldest monuments, such as the three-towered Wat Phra Phai Luang, are in Angkorian style. The city's golden age came under King Ramkhamhaeng in the late 13th century; the stone inscription attributed to him, found here in 1833 by the future King Mongkut, is famous as an early record of Thai script, though its origin is disputed by scholars. The kingdom was absorbed by Ayutthaya from 1378, and the old city was finally abandoned when a new Sukhothai was founded to the east in 1793.
At the centre stands Wat Mahathat, the royal temple, whose main stupa ends in the lotus-bud finial typical of Sukhothai. Around its base walks a stucco procession of disciples, and two nine-metre standing Buddhas flank it; around it are some two hundred smaller stupas. Wat Si Chum encloses a seated Buddha, Phra Achana, 15 metres high and 11 metres wide, in a square mandapa with walls about a metre thick. Wat Sa Si, on an island in the Traphang Trakuan pond, is one of the most beautiful corners of the site. The Ramkhamhaeng National Museum near the central zone displays sculpture and finds from the site.
The central zone is best seen by bicycle, which can be rented from shops opposite the main entrance; the other zones are spread over a wider area. The park is at its most atmospheric early in the morning and in the evening light.
Getting there
The park lies in Old Sukhothai, about 12 km west of New Sukhothai, where most hotels and the bus station are; blue songthaews and ride-hailing cars connect the two. Sukhothai Airport (THS) is about 27 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Sukhothai Historical Park covers the ruins of Sukhothai, literally 'dawn of happiness', capital of the Sukhothai Kingdom in the 13th and 14th centuries, in north central Thailand. It is near the city of Sukhothai Thani, capital of Sukhothai province.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
17.02111, 99.70361per Wikidata