Mueang Fa Daet Song Yang is a moated archaeological site in Northeast Thailand along the Pao River. It lies in Kamalasai district, Kalasin province, on the Khorat Plateau, with the Sakon Nakhon basin to the north and the Chi River system to the south. Its position among several waterways suited rice farming, trade and transport. The artifacts and features found there show a large-scale Buddhist community and are commonly associated with the Dvaravati culture. The site was first excavated in 1968 and later by Phasook Indrawooth in 1991, whose nine test pits found two phases of occupation, an Iron Age phase with extended burials and a Dvaravati phase with primary and secondary jar burials. Local tradition has the site founded by Chao Fa Ra-ngum in 621 AD, though the earliest occupation has been reported to date to the Iron Age.
Mueang Fa Daet Song Yang was a supra-regional center of the Dvaravati civilization, together with Si Thep, Dong Mueang Aem and others, though little is known of its political structure. It may once have been the center of an ancient kingdom. Read from its standing remains, which include an ubosot and over 170 sema stones, it resembles a ceremonial center rather than a large village. Reliefs on the boundary stones and comparisons with Champa sculpture have been used to argue for contacts to the east. The site has also been proposed as the outer capital of the polity known from Tang records as Wen Dan.
Landscape
Located on the Pao River on the Khorat Plateau, it is south of the Sakon Nakhon basin and north of the Chi River system. This site is located near multiple waterways making it an excellent location for rice farming. The access to nearby waterways also made it easier for trade among nearby communities. It is believed that there was a surplus of agriculture which was used to trade for stone and metal used in an abundance of buddhist art. The presence of the rivers nearby also contributed to the spread of ideas and practices such as the Buddhist religion.
It was originally thought that the waterways may have provided protection for the people living in Mueang Fa Daet but the position of stupas outside of the moat may disagree with that. The location of the site seems to be well thought through, as it lies near river systems that could have been used for transportation and trade. It can also be interpreted that there was a dynamic relationship between the monastery and the community nearby. The monastery may have gotten food and other donations from the community to sustain themselves. The landscape and layout of the site and settlement, especially the stupas outside the moats, also suggest that Buddhism moved into the site, and prior to this the moat was used to keep things out, as protection.
History
Iron Age and proto-historic occupation
When this site was excavated in 1991 it was discovered that there were two phases of occupation. The first phase took place during the so-called “iron age” and the second during the early Dvaravati period. The first phase was dated to around 300 BC-AD 200 determined from radiocarbon dating of charcoal samples from multiple burial sites. Burials found from this time period were extended burials placed on a western alignment and possessed no grave goods.
The same excavation has also been read as giving three periods rather than two. On that reading occupation runs continuously from about 300 BCE. A proto-historic period follows, of about the 2nd to the 6th century CE, dated on radiocarbon and on the pottery. A historic period of the 7th to 11th centuries is then associated with Dvaravati culture. Recognising a proto-historic phase at all departs from the standard Thai periodisation, and has been taken as support for treating the 4th to 6th centuries as a transition between late prehistory and Dvaravati. The site is also described as the largest moated settlement on the Khorat Plateau and the one with the most substantial Buddhist remains in the region.
Dvaravati period The second phase falls in the Dvaravati period and includes both primary and secondary burials. Graves of both types occur in this phase, the primary ones holding goods such as pottery, bracelets and beads. The secondary burials were unique in that they had boxes with bones and ashes inside. Dvaravati sites of the 6th to 11th centuries in northeast Thailand commonly overlie Iron Age predecessors.
The monuments exposed in 1968 included stupas and votive tablets that date back, in style, to the 7th to 11th centuries, which is when people are believed to have inhabited this area. Although there have been many findings at this site there has not been any evidence that it was a place of habitation during the Dvaravati period and didn't become inhabited until the Ayutthaya period. The sequence has been read differently, with the earliest occupation dating to the Iron Age and most of the site belonging to the later first millennium AD.
Architecture
Mueang Fa Daet Song Yang is a moated monastery with a water reservoir, several scattered structures, and a large ceremonial center. The site is known for its architectural features, including large brick stupa bases (about 14), mounds, moats, and viharas. These stand within and around a complex of waterways, with only limited evidence of habitation beside them. Read from them, the site resembles a sacred ceremonial center rather than a large village with economic or administrative functions. Centers of that kind, laid out within a network of controlled waterways and carrying many religious structures but little habitation evidence, have been taken for the most striking change in the archaeological landscape of the early historic period. Brick collected at the site is of one size with the brick of U Thong, about 28 by 14 by 8 cm, and both were tempered with rice chaff or rice husk ash. It was made from the sediment of a still lake, which leaves it weaker than the river clays used at U Thong, and matches experimental brick fired at 1,000–1,200 °C. The sampled brick has no excavated context. The site also features Dvaravati style architecture including an ubosot and over 170 sema stones, which are boundary markers that had religious scenes depicted on them. Non-figurative sema appear as early as the 7th century. The pictorial ones at Mueang Fa Daet have been placed slightly later, on their Cham and pre-Angkorian Khmer headdresses and costumes, and perhaps continuing into the 11th century.
The dating of the stones is disputed. The earliest sets of ritual boundary stones have been assigned generally to about 600–750, those at Mueang Fa Daet to about the 9th century, and several of the figural stones there to the 10th. The analysis of costume and coiffure on the narrative stones that might settle a firmer chronology has not been undertaken.
More evidence pointing to this site being a monastery besides looking at the specific stupa bases are the numerous carvings and inscriptions found depicting Buddhist religious imagery with Dvaravati-style iconography. Some of these carvings included scenes from the Jatakas tales and the most famous scene is an image of Buddha side by side with Indra and Brahma. Across the Khorat Plateau and Chao Phraya Basin around this time, the early historical period, themes of Dvaravati ideologies, architecture, and sculptures can be found, as there was an increase in large ceremonial centers, changing the archaeological landscape.
Cultural practices
The site of Mueang Fa Daet was likely a Buddhist society based on the style of artifacts and features found there. The time period and style of ceramics and Buddhist artifacts found here link the culture to the Dvaravati period based on its similarity to other Thailand Dvaravati sites. With this site being a Buddhist society it is thought that there was a presence of Monks in the city. Based on the estimated population size there could have been as many as 85–164 men who could have taken on this role without disturbing the aspects of everyday life.
The Khmer Empire is also thought to influence the culture and religious themes of Mueang Fa Daet as it spread throughout Thailand. The influence of the Khmer Empire can be seen in the specific pottery styles which included corded patterns, incised sherds, and carinated pots. The site may also have been a place of pottery production, with large amounts of clay and the remnants of a kiln left behind. The narrative art found on many sema stones is also believed to have originated in Mueang Fa Daet. The appearance of narrative art sema stones is very limited with the site of Mueang Fa Daet having the largest number with a total of 15. One of these stones, the Ramphan Philap sema (), has been read as showing a warrior with a sword carried on his back standing at a city gate. It is held in the Khon Kaen National Museum.
Mortuary rituals
There are two types of jar burial. Primary burials consist of earthenware jars enclosing human remains with the flesh still on them; secondary burials enclose bones that have been defleshed.
In northeast Thailand, specifically, the Mun and Chi valleys where the site is located, there is an abundance of these secondary jar burials. Excavations of Mueang Fa Daet Song Yang produced many secondary jar burials that were on mounds and surrounded by moats, and iron slag was found with them. These indicators of the iron-smelting processes were found with the jars, which helps reinforce the chronology of the site, post-Iron Age. The jar burials that were excavated from Mueang Fa Daet Song Yang included bronze ornaments (bells, rings, and bracelets), iron implements, pottery vessels, and glass beads along with human bones and skulls.
These are interpreted to be funerary gifts and offerings to the dead. The size and styles of the ceramic jars vary greatly, for example, some have a corded design and are finely baked, and some are more crudely fired. This gives some insight into socio-cultural rituals or aspects of life that this monastery had. Their beliefs can be interpreted as well, as communities that typically practice this type of burial process put a value on the bones of their ancestors and see a connection with their bones and spirits. Families are said to hold that their fortunes can depend on this burial ritual, and on their relationship with their dead. Primary burials are thought to date to the 7th–11th century and secondary burials from the 12th–13th century.
Contact and influences Ideas, religions and cultures reached Mueang Fa Daet Song Yang and interacted there. Although there is not enough evidence to detect exactly where the spread of culture and where political power flows were taking place, there may be earlier evidence buried under the later Khmer period temples that are yet to be identified. The distribution of these sites may indicate a lower population density during this time period and potentially unstable power centers.
A disagreement in interpreting evidence from Mueang Fa Daet lies in the discussion of outside contact and where it exactly came from, and theories vary based on the profession of the individual presenting evidence. One interpretation, from art historians, is that the links from the Khorat Plateau to outside contact were mainly the Chao Phraya River Valley in central Thailand, a place where the Dvaravati culture and styles thrived. Close connections were seen in Buddhist art and pottery styles (cord-marked) between the southwest Dvaravati culture and that of Mueang Fa Daet. A contact of the same kind has been proposed with the upper Yom. Oval clay bars with incised decoration are reported from two burials at Wat Chom Chuen in Chaliang, radiocarbon dated to the 6th or 7th century. The same type is recorded at Mueang Fa Daet Song Yang, at Mueang Fai and Ban Mueang Hong in Buriram, and at Mueang Si Mahosot.