The Plain of Jars: Bombs & Mystery in Laos

"QUANTUM SHOT" #365
Link - by Avi Abrams

Built by mysterious ancient people for mysterious purposes

(image credit: Chris Mitchell)

Ancient Laos legends tell of the giants who drank water from these enormous mysterious "cups". Similar sites were also found in Thailand and in North India. Their locations are strung along a straight line, which suggests that they were built on some kind of a trade route.

Chris Mitchell from Travel Happy sent us his travelogue about this ancient site:

The Plain Of Jars is probably South East Asia’s most enigmatic tourist attraction. Situated in the remote north east of Laos, the mountainous communist country which has only been open to tourists for just over a decade, are hundreds of huge stone jars scattered across several square miles.

(images credit: Chris Mitchell)

Jars of a deeply spooky nature

While most ancient Asian sites, such as the Angkor temples in Cambodia, have revealed many of their secrets, historians are still completely baffled as to where the jars came from, how old they are and what they signify. They are, in short, jars of a deeply spooky nature.

There are three key sites to see the Jars, three places where they are clustered together en masse, but there are apparently over 400 locations where they are to be found scattered across the plain.

(images credit: Chris Mitchell)

Gathered together at the top of this hill, there were around 130 of them scattered about beneath the trees, mercifully undeveloped by any tourist organization. Undisturbed amongst the vast wheat yellow and sky blue horizon of the countryside, the jars did indeed seem mysterious, but there was also a sense of serenity too.

They were all at least a couple of metres long, and must have weighed several tonnes each, some upright, some leaning after being embedded in the ground, some completely toppled over:

All of them are virtually black, and their tall, narrow, hefty bodies make them look like crude cannons, pointing in every direction as if fearing attack from all sides. The darkness of the jars’ stone also makes them seem distinctly funereal and a little sinister:

(image credit: David Hartstone)

The largest jar weighs around 6 metric tons:

(image credit: Keith Kelly)

On top of its mystery, the place may be riddled with unexploded bombs

Whatever its ancient history, the Plain Of Jars has had a turbulent recent past. Thanks to its proximity to the North Vietnamese border, this area of Laos became of key significance during the Vietnam War and so was carpet bombed by the Americans. Laos holds the dubious record of being the most bombed country in the world, despite never officially being involved in the Vietnam war at all. The legacy of the war is still being felt, with farmers and their families regularly being killed or injured by the unexploded ordnance which still litters the Plain. The Jars have been fully cleared of all unexploded bombs, but not straying from the designated paths remains imperative.

(images credit: GothPhil)

The lids for these jars are also quite mysterious looking. They have as much texture and ancient feel to them as Stonehenge.

(images credit: Keith Kelly)

(image credit: Chris Mitchell)

Some of them are filled with miniature Buddhas: which somehow feels very appropriate:

(image credit: Keith Kelly)

Speaking of the Stonehenge:

Another Stonehenge Found Deep in Amazon Forest

That's right, mysterious huge stones set in a definite pattern - an astrological observatory possibly 2,000 years old - have been discovered in the Amazon basin near French Guiana... (more info)

(image credit: Gilmar Nascimento / AP)

The site consists of 127 blocks, some as high as 9 feet (2.75 meters) tall. The stones placed at "regular intervals around the hill, like a crown 100 feet (30 meters) in diameter."

Scientists believe the site near the village of Calcoene, just north of the equator in Amapa state in far northern Brazil, could have been built by the ancestors of the Palikur Indians, and could be as old as 2,000 years.

(image courtesy Academy For Future Science, Brazil)

The article is co-written by Chris Mitchell, Travel Happy and A. Abrams, Dark Roasted Blend
All images are by permission of respective owners