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54-522: Ban Chiang ( Thai : บ้านเชียง , pronounced [bâːn tɕʰīaŋ] listen ; Northeastern Thai : บ้านเซียง , pronounced [bâːn si᷇aŋ] ) is an archaeological site in Nong Han district , Udon Thani province , Thailand . It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1992. Discovered in 1966, the site first attracted interest due to its ancient red-painted pottery . More recently, it gained international attention in 2008 when

108-411: A dialect continuum . Thai language is spoken by over 69 million people (2020). Moreover, most Thais in the northern (Lanna) and the northeastern (Isan) parts of the country today are bilingual speakers of Central Thai and their respective regional dialects because Central Thai is the language of television, education, news reporting, and all forms of media. A recent research found that the speakers of

162-565: A second language among the country's minority ethnic groups from the mid-late Ayutthaya period onward. Ethnic minorities today are predominantly bilingual, speaking Thai alongside their native language or dialect. Standard Thai is classified as one of the Chiang Saen languages—others being Northern Thai , Southern Thai and numerous smaller languages, which together with the Northwestern Tai and Lao-Phutai languages, form

216-533: A four-way distinction among stops and affricates . The maximal four-way occurred in labials ( /p pʰ b ʔb/ ) and denti-alveolars ( /t tʰ d ʔd/ ); the three-way distinction among velars ( /k kʰ ɡ/ ) and palatals ( /tɕ tɕʰ dʑ/ ), with the glottalized member of each set apparently missing. The major change between old and modern Thai was due to voicing distinction losses and the concomitant tone split . This may have happened between about 1300 and 1600 CE, possibly occurring at different times in different parts of

270-400: A more likely date for the earliest metallurgy at Ban Chiang was c. 2000–1700 BCE. A date of 2100 BCE was obtained from rice phytoliths taken from inside a grave vessel of the lowest grave, which had no metal remains. The youngest grave was about 200 CE. Bronze making began circa 2000 BCE, as evidenced by crucibles and bronze fragments. A contrasting analysis was conducted by Charles Higham of

324-446: A private collector and documented the case. The agent bought looted antiquities from two art dealers and donated them to various California art museums like the ones listed above. He found that museum officials had "varying degrees of knowledge about the antiquities' provenance" and agreed to the donations. In total, the federal government seized more than 10,000 looted artifacts, many of which were from Ban Chiang. The alleged smuggler of

378-579: A speaker of Thai , was familiar with the work of Wilhelm Solheim and his theory of the possible ancient origins of civilization in Southeast Asia. One day while walking down a path in Ban Chiang with his assistant, an art teacher at the village school, Young tripped over the root of a red kapok tree ( Bombax ceiba ) and fell on his face in the dirt path. Under him were the exposed tops of small and medium-sized pottery jars. Young recognized that

432-530: A syllable that formerly began with a voiceless consonant (including glottalized stops). An additional complication is that formerly voiceless unaspirated stops/affricates (original /p t k tɕ ʔb ʔd/ ) also caused original tone 1 to lower, but had no such effect on original tones 2 or 3. The above consonant mergers and tone splits account for the complex relationship between spelling and sound in modern Thai. Modern "low"-class consonants were voiced in Old Thai, and

486-728: A wealth of pots. Rice fragments were also found, leading to the belief that the Bronze Age settlers were probably farmers. The site's oldest graves do not include bronze artifacts and are therefore from a Neolithic culture; the most recent graves date to the Iron Age . The first intensive excavation of Ban Chiang was a joint effort by the University of Pennsylvania Museum and the Thai Department of Fine Arts, with co-directors Chester Gorman and Pisit Charoenwongsa. The aim

540-576: Is a Tai language of the Kra–Dai language family spoken by the Central Thai , Mon , Lao Wiang , Phuan people in Central Thailand and the vast majority of Thai Chinese enclaves throughout the country. It is the sole official language of Thailand . Thai is the most spoken of over 60 languages of Thailand by both number of native and overall speakers. Over half of its vocabulary

594-523: Is derived from or borrowed from Pali , Sanskrit , Mon and Old Khmer . It is a tonal and analytic language . Thai has a complex orthography and system of relational markers . Spoken Thai, depending on standard sociolinguistic factors such as age, gender, class, spatial proximity, and the urban/rural divide, is partly mutually intelligible with Lao , Isan , and some fellow Thai topolects . These languages are written with slightly different scripts, but are linguistically similar and effectively form

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648-421: Is of interest to archaeologists, as ancient Southeast Asian metallurgy flourished without the presence of a militaristic or urbanized state, unlike many other ancient societies that had mastered metallurgy. Dr Joyce White and Elizabeth Hamilton co-authored a four-volume Ban Chiang metals monograph, the most extensive of its kind in Ban Chiang scholarship. The work presents metals and related evidence from

702-485: Is the traveling exhibit curated by Dr White, titled Ban Chiang, Discovery of a Lost Bronze Age , which toured internationally following the 1974-75 Penn Museum excavations and became part of the Ban Chiang Museum permanent exhibit in 1987. The museum includes "displays and information that highlight the three main periods and six sub-periods" as well as the site's general and excavation history. Artifacts from

756-466: The Northern Thai language (also known as Phasa Mueang or Kham Mueang) have become so few, as most people in northern Thailand now invariably speak Standard Thai, so that they are now using mostly Central Thai words and only seasoning their speech with the "Kham Mueang" accent. Standard Thai is based on the register of the educated classes by Central Thai and ethnic minorities in the area along

810-507: The Sacramento State University and the University of Hawaiʻi , where he also got his MA and his PhD. Chester Gorman worked mostly in Southeast Asia. Among the most significant sites he worked are Ban Chiang in northeast Thailand and Spirit Cave in northwest Thailand, one of the major Hoabinhian sites. While surveying for sites in northeast Thailand with Wilhelm Solheim between 1963-1964, Gorman also discovered

864-521: The Southwestern branch of Tai languages . The Tai languages are a branch of the Kra–Dai language family , which encompasses a large number of indigenous languages spoken in an arc from Hainan and Guangxi south through Laos and Northern Vietnam to the Cambodian border. Standard Thai is the principal language of education and government and spoken throughout Thailand. The standard is based on

918-533: The United States Department of Justice , following an undercover investigation begun in 2003, raided several museums for their role in trafficking in Ban Chiang antiquities. Villagers had uncovered some of the pottery in prior years without insight into their age or historical importance. In August 1966, Steve Young, a political science student at Harvard College , was living in the village conducting interviews for his senior honors thesis. Young,

972-701: The University of Otago using the bones from the people who lived at Ban Chiang and the bones of animals interred with them. The resulting determinations were analyzed using Bayesian statistics and the results suggested that the initial settlement of Ban Chiang took place about 1500 BCE, with the transition to the Bronze Age about 1000 BCE. The chronology of Ban Chiang metallurgy is still in considerable dispute. Ban Chiang, along with other surrounding villages in northeast Thailand, contains many bronze artifacts that demonstrate that metallurgy had been practiced in small, village settings nearly four thousand years ago. This

1026-408: The University of Pennsylvania for dating. Unfortunately, the early publicity, the beauty of the pots, and the belief that the pots were several thousands of years old led to avid collecting and consequent avid looting by the villagers. The Fine Arts Department of Thailand conducted several small excavations during the 1960s and early 1970s. These excavations revealed skeletons, bronze artifacts and

1080-492: The thermoluminescence technique , resulting in a range from 4420–3400 BCE, which would have made the site the earliest Bronze Age culture in the world. These dates stirred world-wide interest. Thermoluminescence dating of pottery was at the time an experimental technique and had been applied to Ban Chiang sherds of uncertain provenance. However, with the 1974–1975 excavation, sufficient material became available for radiocarbon dating . Reanalysis by radiocarbon dating suggested that

1134-489: The 13 properties that held the looted artifacts. The smuggler was arraigned in court in 2013 and pleaded not guilty and his trial was scheduled for November 2016, but was continued numerous times until he died in May 2017. Other alleged major players in the trafficking ring died of various causes before ever going to trial. However, the case still yielded fruitful results, including convictions. Jonathan and Cari Markell, owners of

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1188-521: The 1990s; and, since 2001, survey and excavation in northern Laos , especially in Luang Prabang Province . For Ban Chiang, White, along with Elizabeth Hamilton, has published a monograph through the University of Pennsylvania Press on the ancient metallurgy of Ban Chiang and nearby sites. The last of the four volumes was published in 2021. Thai language Thai , or Central Thai (historically Siamese ; Thai: ภาษาไทย ),

1242-591: The Ban Chiang Project at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology . Dr. White's research endeavors have included analysis and publication of Penn's excavations at Ban Chiang in Thailand in the mid-1970s; ecological field research at Ban Chiang in 1978–1981 including investigations of how local people identified and used plants; lake coring and ecological mapping for palaeoenvironmental research in several parts of Thailand during

1296-761: The Ban Chiang and other prehistoric sites in Thailand were found to be in the collections of at least five California museums, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art , the Mingei International Museum , the Pacific Asian Museum , the Charles W. Bowers Museum , and the UC Berkeley Art Museum . The complex plot functioned as a crime ring and involved smuggling the items out of Thailand into

1350-646: The Ban Chiang chronology discourse. They analyzed the metals comprehensively through innovative technological perspectives in order to understand ancient metals in their social contexts. To do this, they make systematic assessments by typological range, variation in metal composition and manufacturing techniques, evidence for on-site production activities, and contextual evidence for deposition of metal finds. White and Hamilton also write that regional variation in metalworker know-how and choices can reveal past networks of communities of metallurgical practice that could have important ramifications for economic and social networks of

1404-555: The Khmer system first before the Thai borrowed. Old Thai had a three-way tone distinction on "live syllables" (those not ending in a stop), with no possible distinction on "dead syllables" (those ending in a stop, i.e. either /p/, /t/, /k/ or the glottal stop that automatically closes syllables otherwise ending in a short vowel). There was a two-way voiced vs. voiceless distinction among all fricative and sonorant consonants, and up to

1458-805: The Pacific Asia Museum, and the UC Berkeley Art Museum are also expected to repatriate stolen goods. This case is nationally significant for two major reasons: it was a US government-led crackdown, as opposed to being a result of complaints by foreign governments, and it also set a higher standard of accountability for museum officials who deal with cultural property, in accordance with the National Stolen Property Act and Archaeological Resources Protection Act . After Dr. Gorman's death in 1981, Dr. Joyce White continued research and publications as Director of

1512-633: The Silk Road Gallery, pleaded guilty to antiquities trafficking charges in 2015. Jonathan Markell was sentenced to 18 months in prison for trafficking looted archaeological artifacts and falsifying documents, as well as a year of supervised probation. The couple was also sentenced to three years of unsupervised probation for tax evasion . Additionally, they were fined approximately US$ 2,000 restitution and must pay to ship more than 300 artifacts seized from their home and shuttered gallery back to Southeast Asia at an estimated cost of US$ 25,000. Some of

1566-491: The Thai-speaking area. All voiced–voiceless pairs of consonants lost the voicing distinction: However, in the process of these mergers, the former distinction of voice was transferred into a new set of tonal distinctions. In essence, every tone in Old Thai split into two new tones, with a lower-pitched tone corresponding to a syllable that formerly began with a voiced consonant, and a higher-pitched tone corresponding to

1620-557: The US, and then donating them to museums in order to claim tax write-offs . There were said to be more items in US museums than at the site itself. The case was brought to light during 13 high-profile raids conducted by federal law enforcement officers on various California and Chicago museums, shops, warehouses, and homes of private art collectors; it was the culmination of a five-year federal undercover investigation called Operation Antiquity . A National Park Service special agent had posed as

1674-485: The University of Pennsylvania Museum for analysis. The early death of Chet Gorman in 1981, at the age of 43, slowed the process of analysis and publication. This site has often been called a "cemetery site", but research has suggested that the deceased were buried next to or beneath dwellings. This practice is called residential burial. At least 142 discrete burials were found in the 1974-1975 excavations. Analysis of

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1728-457: The data on metal and metal-related artifacts found at Ban Chiang and surrounding sites. The metal artifacts are classified into nine groups: bangles, adzes/tillers, blades, points, bells, wires/rods, flat, amorphous, and miscellaneous. The three metal-related groups are crucibles, molds, and slag. The metals database also records the time period in which the artifacts were created and the technical analyses performed on each artifact. The site itself

1782-545: The dialect of the central Thai people, and it is written in the Thai script . Hlai languages Kam-Sui languages Kra languages Be language Northern Tai languages Central Tai languages Khamti language Tai Lue language Shan language others Northern Thai language Thai language Southern Thai language Tai Yo language Phuthai language Lao language (PDR Lao, Isan language ) Thai has undergone various historical sound changes. Some of

1836-463: The excavations uncovered crucibles and other evidence of metal working, showing that the villagers of Ban Chiang from an early stage manufactured their own metal artifacts rather than simply importing them from elsewhere. Recovered bronze objects include bracelets, rings, anklets, wires and rods, spearheads, axes and adzes, hooks, blades, and little bells. After the two seasons of excavation, six tons of pottery, stone, and metal artifacts were shipped to

1890-406: The human remains by Michael Pietrusewsky and Michele Toomay Douglas revealed that the people lived a vigorous and active lifestyle with little evidence of interpersonal violence or any form of warfare. The subsistence was based on mixed agricultural/hunting/gathering economy, co-occurring with metallurgy. The conclusion that the centuries-long occupation of the site was largely peaceful is bolstered by

1944-404: The lack of metal weapons. The excavation at Ban Chiang in 1974–1975 was followed by an article by Chester Gorman and Pisit Charoenwongsa, claiming evidence for the earliest dates in the world for bronze casting and iron working. Subsequent excavations, including that at Ban Non Wat , have now shown that the proposed early dates for Ban Chiang are unlikely. The first datings of the artifacts used

1998-528: The local patois as pronounced in Guangdong Ayutthaya , the old capital of Thailand from 1351 - 1767 A.D., was from the beginning a bilingual society, speaking Thai and Khmer . Bilingualism must have been strengthened and maintained for some time by the great number of Khmer-speaking captives the Thais took from Angkor Thom after their victories in 1369, 1388 and 1431. Gradually toward the end of

2052-551: The most significant changes occurred during the evolution from Old Thai to modern Thai. The Thai writing system has an eight-century history and many of these changes, especially in consonants and tones, are evidenced in the modern orthography . According to a Chinese source, during the Ming dynasty , Yingya Shenglan (1405–1433), Ma Huan reported on the language of the Xiānluó (暹羅) or Ayutthaya Kingdom, saying that it somewhat resembled

2106-479: The museum are also displayed in a Virtual Museum website. The site and museum have been reviewed by several travel publications, including CNN, TripAdvisor, and the official tourism site of Thailand. This tourist traffic in turn has had a profound impact on the village economy, with several small shops and restaurants developing near the museum. The site made headlines in January 2008, when thousands of artifacts from

2160-485: The museums discovered to possess trafficked and looted artifacts have returned them to Thailand. The Mingei International Museum has repatriated 68 artifacts, while the Bowers Museum has returned 542 vases, bowls, and other objects. By doing so, the museums avoided prosecution. The Markells themselves are expected to give back 337 antiquities as part of their sentencing agreement. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art,

2214-415: The period, a language shift took place. Khmer fell out of use. Both Thai and Khmer descendants whose great-grand parents or earlier ancestors were bilingual came to use only Thai. In the process of language shift, an abundance of Khmer elements were transferred into Thai and permeated all aspects of the language. Consequently, the Thai of the late Ayutthaya Period which later became Ratanakosin or Bangkok Thai,

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2268-519: The ring surrounding the Metropolis . In addition to Central Thai, Thailand is home to other related Tai languages . Although most linguists classify these dialects as related but distinct languages, native speakers often identify them as regional variants or dialects of the "same" Thai language, or as "different kinds of Thai". As a dominant language in all aspects of society in Thailand, Thai initially saw gradual and later widespread adoption as

2322-492: The royal vocabulary according to their immediate environment. Thai and Pali, the latter from Theravada Buddhism, were added to the vocabulary. An investigation of the Ayutthaya Rajasap reveals that three languages, Thai, Khmer and Khmero-Indic were at work closely both in formulaic expressions and in normal discourse. In fact, Khmero-Indic may be classified in the same category as Khmer because Indic had been adapted to

2376-507: The site as well as three other sites in northeast Thailand: Ban Tong, Ban Phak Top, and Don Klang. It is the second installment in the Thai Archaeology Monograph Series, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press and distributed for the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology . In the monograph, White and Hamilton catalogue and classify metal artifacts as well as contribute to

2430-471: The site, its discovery, and archaeological interpretation, as well as the history of interest in the site by the Thai royal family. The museum includes an accurate open pit recreation of the excavation at a temple some 700 meters away called Wat Pho Si Mai, with the Ban Chiang Culture artifacts and simulated skeletons displayed as they appeared during excavation. Included in the museum's collection

2484-535: The terminology "low" reflects the lower tone variants that resulted. Modern "mid"-class consonants were voiceless unaspirated stops or affricates in Old Thai—precisely the class that triggered lowering in original tone 1 but not tones 2 or 3. Modern "high"-class consonants were the remaining voiceless consonants in Old Thai (voiceless fricatives, voiceless sonorants, voiceless aspirated stops). The three most common tone "marks" (the lack of any tone mark, as well as

2538-601: The three tones of Old Thai were split have since merged into five in standard Thai, with the lower variant of former tone 2 merging with the higher variant of former tone 3, becoming the modern "falling" tone. หม ม หน น, ณ หญ ญ หง ง ป ผ พ, ภ บ ฏ, ต ฐ, ถ ท, ธ ฎ, ด จ ฉ ช Chester Gorman Born in Oakland, California , he grew up on his parents' dairy farm in Elk Grove . He studied at

2592-503: The time as well as how those changed over time. One of their major findings is that most copper alloy products were cast in local villages and not at large centralized workshops. White, a leading scholar on Ban Chiang, directs an organization, the Institute of Southeast Asian Archaeology (ISEAA), that manages the Ban Chiang Project at the University of Pennsylvania Museum. The project runs an open access metals database that presents

2646-526: The trafficking plot imported all the Southeast Asian antiquities illegally. He entered the business during a 1970s trip to Thailand, buying antiquities from Thai middlemen and flipping the items to California museums for a small profit. His frequent clients included Beverly Hills home decor shops and private art galleries like the Silk Road Gallery. Based on the smuggler's interactions with the undercover agent, federal agents obtained warrants to search

2700-423: The two marks termed mai ek and mai tho ) represent the three tones of Old Thai, and the complex relationship between tone mark and actual tone is due to the various tonal changes since then. Since the tone split, the tones have changed in actual representation to the point that the former relationship between lower and higher tonal variants has been completely obscured. Furthermore, the six tones that resulted after

2754-672: The unglazed earthenware pots had been low-fired and were quite old, but that the designs applied to the surface of the vessels were unique. He took samples of pots to Princess Phanthip Chumbote at the private museum of Suan Pakkad Palace in Bangkok and to Chin Yu Di of the Thai Government's Fine Arts Department . Later, Elisabeth Lyons, an art historian on the staff of the Ford Foundation , sent potsherds from Ban Chiang to

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2808-453: Was a thorough mixture of Thai and Khmer. There were more Khmer words in use than Tai cognates. Khmer grammatical rules were used actively to coin new disyllabic and polysyllabic words and phrases. Khmer expressions, sayings, and proverbs were expressed in Thai through transference. Thais borrowed both the Royal vocabulary and rules to enlarge the vocabulary from Khmer. The Thais later developed

2862-415: Was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1992 under criteria iii, which describes a site that "bear[s] a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or has disappeared." The site has been increasingly attractive to Thai and international tourists, an interest fostered by a site museum that has continually upgraded its buildings and exhibitions about

2916-515: Was not only to investigate the site but to train Thai and western archaeologists in the latest techniques. Because of the looting, they had difficulty finding undisturbed areas to excavate, but settled on two areas 100 meters apart. The locales proved to be far richer in finds than expected, and the distinctive red-on-buff pottery that had excited so much interest proved to be quite late (300 B.C.– AD 200), with many levels of equally noteworthy pottery and other cultural remains beneath them. More exciting,

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