November 30, 2023
The historical site now known as Sisatchanalai contains the remains of one of the most important of Thailand's early city-states. The ruins include some of the country's most grand temple complexes from the 15-16th centuries, as well as the remnants of a vast industrial estate that was one of Asia's largest centers of ceramics production in that period. So when the Siam Society announced they were hosting a study tour to the historical sites we were one of the first to sign up.
The area has been understated in much of the written history on Thailand's political development. The traditional view of Thailand’s history focused on the rise of kingdoms linked to royal lineages centered on a dominant capital city. That approach put less emphasis on other prominent city-states that were centers of wealth and power in their own right and often rivaled the capital cities.
Known in the day as both Chaliang and Sangkalok (or Sawankhalok), names derived from earlier Mon settlers*, the city emerged by the mid-late14thC as a major center of Theravada Buddhist practice and ceramics production. Strategically located on the upper central river plain just on the edge of the northern mountain ranges, Sisatchanalai became the major satellite city to Sukhothai and important source of revenue. It remained a strategic base and industrial center for the Ayutthaya state for another century and a half after Sukhothai was effectively merged into Ayutthaya after the mid-1400s. The city was the battleground in the mid-15thC wars between Ayutthaya-Sukhothai and the Lanna state centered on Chiang Mai and features as the setting in the period's famous epic poem Yuen Phai.
The ceramics industry contributed significantly to the city's prominence. The city was built on the shallow bends of the Yom River, which captured layers of fine silt flowing from the lush forested mountains further to the north. This provided the area's early inhabitants with high quality clay and gave rise to the development of earthenware production, which archaeologists have dated back as early as the 9th-10th centuries or even earlier. Upgraded with technologies both developed locally and disseminating from southern China and northern Thailand via river-based trade networks, the city's mighty kilns were producing high-fired celadons by the latter 1300s. Over the next 100 years the city became one of the largest exporters of high-grade ceramics in Asia.
The peak of the city’s ceramics exports, c1375-1500, corresponds with the construction of many of Sisatchanalai’s major temples and its triple-rampart inner city defensive walls.
The kiln complex extended for 5 kms along the west bank of the Yom river to the north of the city.
* On the city's multiple names and the implications for understanding its history, readers are referred to the historian Michael Vickery's analysis in his 1990 article “The Old City of ‘Chaliang’ – ‘Sri Satchanalai – ‘Sawankhalok’: A problem in history and historiography.” Journal of the Siam Society. 78 (2d): pp 15-29.
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