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Plain of Jars

The Plain of Jars (Lao: ທົ່ງໄຫຫິນ Thong Hai Hin, [tʰōŋ hǎj hǐn]) is a megalithic archaeological landscape in Laos. It consists of thousands of stone jars scattered around the upland valleys and the lower foothills of the central plain of the Xiangkhoang Plateau. The jars are arranged in clusters ranging in number from one to several hundred.[1]

Alternative name

Thong Hai Hin

Xiangkhoang Plateau

 Laos

19°25′52″N 103°9′9″E / 19.43111°N 103.15250°E / 19.43111; 103.15250

about 3 meters

stone

Megalithic Jar Sites in Xiengkhuang – Plain of Jars

Cultural: (iii)

2019 (43rd session)

1587

Southeast Asia

The Xiangkhoang Plateau is at the northern end of the Annamese Cordillera, the principal mountain range of Indochina. French researcher Madeleine Colani concluded in 1930 that the jars were associated with burial practices. Excavation by Lao and Japanese archaeologists in the intervening years has supported this interpretation with the discovery of human remains, burial goods and ceramics around the jars. Researchers (using optically stimulated luminescence) determined that the jars were put in place as early as 1240 to 660 BC.[2] The jars at Site 1 (using detrital zircon geochronology) were determined to have been transported to their current location from a presumed quarry eight kilometers away.[2] The Plain of Jars is one of the most important prehistoric sites in Southeast Asia.

Present day[edit]

Between May 1964 and the summer of 1969, the Plain of Jars was heavily bombed by the United States Air Force operating against North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao communist forces during the Secret War.[4] This included 262 million anti-personnel cluster bombs. An estimated 80 million of these did not explode and remain a deadly threat to the population.[5][6][7]


The large quantity of unexploded bombs in the area, especially cluster munitions, limits free movement. Evidence of the bombing raids can be seen in the form of broken or displaced jars and bomb craters. Sightseeing on the Plain of Jars can only be done safely on cleared and marked pathways.


The Mines Advisory Group, a non-governmental organization, in collaboration with UNESCO and funded by the New Zealand government (NZAID), cleared unexploded bombs from the three most visited sites from July 2004 to July 2005.[8] A second phase of bomb clearance at the sites also funded by NZAID was undertaken in 2007; four more jar sites were made safe.


On 6 July 2019, the Plain of Jars was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[9]

Campaign Z

Bomb Harvest

List of megalithic sites

Sa Huỳnh culture

Giant jars of Assam

Baldock, J and J. Van Den Bergh 2009. "Geological Mysteries at the Plain of Jars begin to unravel". Geology Today. August 2009.

Box, P. 2000. Overview Mapping Using GIS, UNESCO Plain of Jars Cultural Heritage Documentation Project, Richard A Engelhardt, ed., UNESCO Regional Advisor for Culture in Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok.

Box, P. 2001. Mapping Megaliths and Unexploded Ordnance, UNESCO Plain of Jars Cultural Heritage Documentation Project, Richard A Engelhardt, ed., UNESCO Regional Advisor for Culture in Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok.

Box, P. 2003, "Safeguarding the Plain of Jars: Megaliths and Unexploded Ordnance in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic". ESRI, Journal of GIS in Archaeology, Volume 1-April 2003.

(compiled by): Voices from the Plain of Jars - Life under an Air War; Harper & Row 1972.

Fred Branfman

Karen J. Coates - '"Plain of Jars" (Archaeology, July/August 2005)

Colani, Madeleine 1935. Megaliths du Haut Laos, Publication de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient XXV-XXVI, Paris.

Giteau, M. 2001, Art et Archeologie du Laos, Editions A et J Picard, Paris, pp. 37–57.

Higham, C. 1989. The Archaeology of Mainland Southeast Asia, From 10,000 B.C. to the Fall of Angkor, Cambridge World Archaeology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. pp. 228–230.

Nitta E. 1996. "Comparative study on the jar burial traditions in Vietnam, Thailand and Laos". Historical Science Reports, Kagoshima University 43: 1-19.

Rogers P., R. Engelhardt, P. Box, J. Van Den Bergh, Samlane Luangaphay and Chantone Chantavong 2003. "The UNESCO project: Safeguarding the Plain of Jars". In A. Karlström, and A. Källén (eds) Fishbones and Glittering Emblems: Southeast Asian Archaeology 2002. Stockholm: Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities.

Rogers, P. and J. Van Den Bergh 2008. "Legacy of a Secret War: archaeological research and bomb clearance in the Plain of Jars, Lao PDR". In E. Bacus, I. Glover and P. Sharrock (eds) Interpreting Southeast Asian's Past. Monument, Image and Text. Selected Papers from 10th Conference of EASAA, Vol. 2: 400-408.

Sayavongkhamdy Thongsa and Peter Bellwood 2001. "Recent Archaeological Research in Laos". Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 19: 101-10.

Stone, R. 2007. "Archaeology: Saving a Lost Culture's Megalithic Jars, Xieng Khouang, Laos", Science, 16, February 2007: Vol. 315. no. 5814, pp. 934 – 935.

Bounmy Thepsimuong. The Plain of Jars. A Guide Book. Vientiane 2004.

Van Den Bergh Julie 2007. "Safeguarding the Plain of Jars, an Overview". Y. Goudineau and M. Lorrilard. (eds.) Etudes thematiques 18. New Research on Laos-Recherches nouveles sur le Laos.

Allman, T D (August 2015). . National Geographic. Archived from the original on 21 July 2017. Retrieved 16 May 2020.

"Laos Finds New Life After the Bombs"

Boyne, Walter J. (1 June 1999). . Air Force Magazine. Retrieved 16 May 2020.

"The Plain of Jars"

Branfman, Fred, ed. (2013). . Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 9780299292249. Retrieved 16 May 2020.

Voices from the Plain of Jars: Life Under an Air War

Ciochon, Russell L. (15 June 2009). . The Asia-Pacific Journal. 7 (24–3). Retrieved 16 May 2020.

"Laos Plain of Jars in the Wake of American Bombing"

Archived 21 March 2020 at the Wayback Machine

UNESCO website for the Plain of Jars and Safeguarding the Plain of Jars Project