Page 16 - Demo

16|April 2020
Plain of Jars – Plain of Mystery
feet and can weigh up to 14 tons per jar. The jars are thought to be between 1,500 and 2,000 years old.
Some of the materials for the jars have been linked to a local quarry. Some folks think the boul- ders were transported by elephants and other large animals, while still others think that the boulders were
Slippery rock GAzette
a race of giants lived in this area. They were ruled by King Kuhn Cheung. After they won a long, hard-fought war, he supposedly had the jars fabricated to make and store rice beer and wine for the vic- tory celebration.
Another theory is that the jars were placed along an ancient salt
Just to keep things on the up and up and to avoid any cries of bias when I only write about “certain continents,” I asked a coworker to pick the next conti- nent out of the bowl for this series. He pulled out Asia.
There are so many ancient stone places to write about in Asia: Borobudur in Indonesia, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, and the Great Wall of China, just to name a few. I was so undecided. Then I stum- bled across the Plain of Jars in Laos. I didn’t settle on it because it was ornate or an engineering mar- vel. Although, to make the jars, it must have taken a lot of hard work by a lot of people to hollow out thousands of boulders by hand, with no modern tools or machines. I decided on it because it was mysterious.
Laos is a country in Southeast Asia bordered in part by China, Myanmar and Thailand. Usually when people think about Laos, they think of the beautiful natural scen- ery such as the waterfalls and lush,
Sharon Koehler
Artistic Stone Design
“Site One” on the Plain of Jars and other stone jar sites in Laos are close to being awarded UNESCO World Heritage status.
beautiful forests. But, up in the highlands, there is a place called Plain of Jars.
The Plain of Jars is scattered with thousands of large stone boulders that have been hollowed out to make jars. They are scattered over the area in clusters ranging from 1 jar to several hundred jars. Some of the jars are thought to have had
lids, but very few lids have been found. Most of the jars were made from sandstone but there are also some made of granite, limestone, and breccia. No matter what site the jars are found in (there are well over 60 sites), the jars carry the basic cylinder shape with the base being wider than the top. They range in height from 3 feet to 10
transported by raft on a nearby river. Whether by elephant or by river barge, somehow, someway these huge rock jars ended up hollowed out and scattered in the highlands.
While none of this sounds very mysterious, it is the use of these jars that seems to be the mystery.
A local legend says that long ago
First “discovered” and exca- vated by French archaeologists in the 1930s, the stone vessels are slowly yielding their secrets.
trade route. The jars were used to collect and store rainwater during the monsoon season so traders could have water during the dry months.
Please turn to page 18
YOUR SAFETY IS WHAT MATTERS
BUNDLE RACK
STONE STORAGE, FABRICATION AND TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
Built with the customer in mind, offering tremendous strength and support for every job.
THINK. SAFETY. FIRST.
TR6K
800.991.2120 www.Groves.com