Two ruined sanctuaries on an extinct volcano south-west of Mueang Tam, named in Thailand's own UNESCO nomination and known chiefly for what was taken from them: the Prakhon Chai bronzes, which left the country in the 1960s and are scattered through Western museums.
ปราสาทเขาปลายบัด · Prasat Khao Plai Bat
| Official name | ปราสาทเขาปลายบัด — Prasat Khao Plai Bat |
|---|---|
| Where | Chorakhe Mak, Prakhon Chai, Buriram |
| Royal temple class | Not established from an official register. |
| Monastic order | Not recorded in any register we could read. |
| Ancient monument | Not established. |
Chorakhe Mak, Prakhon Chai, Buriram
The exact location has not been confirmed yet.
Thai temple histories mix two different kinds of statement, and this guide keeps them apart. What a register, a gazette entry, an inscription or a dated royal act shows is one thing. What the chronicles and the temple itself hold is another, and it is worth telling as what it is.
No founding date appears on this page. Figures circulating in English for the age of the Plai Bat sanctuaries and for the bronzes associated with them could not be traced to any instrument, and two attempts to read them through a summarising fetch returned dates that did not survive an arithmetic check between the Buddhist and common eras. Nothing of that kind is printed here.
Khao Plai Bat is an extinct volcano a couple of kilometres south-west of Prasat Mueang Tam, and it carries two ruined sanctuaries. They are the third of the three components in the Ensemble of Phanom Rung, Muang Tam and Plai Bat Sanctuaries that Thailand put on the UNESCO Tentative List in April 2019, and they are by a distance the least visited and the least documented of the three. There is no historical park here, no ticket office and no interpretive signage.
What Thailand's own nomination dossier says about them is worth quoting because it is nearly all the formal description there is: survey found the architectural planning of the Plai Bat sanctuaries identical to that of Phanom Rung, the main sanctuaries oriented to the east, approached by processional walkways running up from barays. In other words, the same design idea as the great sanctuary on the next volcano, executed twice more on this one.
The reason the name is known at all outside Thailand is a loss. In the 1960s a group of Khmer-tradition bronze sculptures left Buriram and entered the international art market, where they became known as the Prakhon Chai bronzes after the district. Museums that acquired pieces of the group recorded them as coming from Prasat Khao Plai Bat. They are now dispersed across Western collections, and the hoard's size is itself disputed: the figure of three hundred images is repeated constantly and, as the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre's inscriptions database reports of the scholarly discussion, it has never been confirmed by anyone who was not part of the digging. Considerably fewer than a hundred are actually accounted for today.
One thing this page exists to keep straight. The bronze known as the Golden Boy, which the Metropolitan Museum of Art returned to Thailand in May 2024, is routinely described in English as a Plai Bat piece. The evidence assembled for its return points somewhere else: to Ban Yang in Lahan Sai district, a different part of Buriram, where researchers identified a stone plinth matching the base of the sculpture and interviewed the family who found it while digging for wild tubers in the 1970s. The Met's own records had described the piece variously as from Buriram province and as Cambodian in successive publications. The Golden Boy and the Prakhon Chai bronzes are two separate losses from two separate places, and conflating them makes a phantom — a sanctuary credited with objects that were never in it.
Local residents have petitioned the provincial governor to have the Plai Bat sanctuaries conserved and opened, and the case for doing so is strong: the site is part of a nomination the state has already made, and it is the one component of that nomination with no protection on the ground.
Two ruined sanctuaries on the summit and slopes of an extinct volcano, both oriented east, in the arrangement Thailand's UNESCO submission describes as identical in planning to Phanom Rung.
The processional approaches leading up from barays below, which are the feature the survey singled out.
Nothing interpreted and nothing ticketed. This is an unmanaged site, not a historical park, and it should be treated as such.
The setting: the third volcano in a line with Phanom Rung and Khao Angkhan, with Mueang Tam on the plain between them.
This is a working place of worship for millions of people rather than an attraction, and it is treated as one at the gate. Where a figure below is blank, no source we are prepared to cite states it.
| Hours | Not established from an official source. |
|---|---|
| Admission | Not established from an official source. |
| Dress | Not established from an official source. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Not established. |
Every temple reference repeats claims nobody has checked. These are the ones we went looking for and could not stand up, listed so you know exactly where this page stops.
Probably not, and this is the most common error made about this site. The bronze returned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in May 2024 was traced, in the research assembled for its restitution, to Ban Yang in Lahan Sai district — a different part of Buriram — where a stone plinth matching the sculpture's base was identified and the family who found it in the 1970s were interviewed. The Met's own catalogue records had described the piece inconsistently, as from Buriram province in one publication and as Cambodian in another. The Prakhon Chai bronzes, which museums did attribute to Prasat Khao Plai Bat, are a separate group that left Thailand in the 1960s. Two losses, two places.
Nobody reliably knows, and the familiar figure should be treated with care. Three hundred is the number repeated almost everywhere; as the scholarly discussion carried by the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre puts it, that figure came from the people who dug the hoard and from those who wrote it down after them, and has never been independently confirmed. Fewer than a hundred pieces are actually accounted for in collections today. This guide does not print a total.
There is nothing organised for visitors — no historical park, no ticket, no signage and no published hours. The sanctuaries are ruins on a wooded volcano and reaching them is not comparable to visiting Phanom Rung or Mueang Tam. Local residents have petitioned the provincial governor to have the site conserved and developed, which tells you where it currently stands. Ask at the Phanom Rung Historical Park office before attempting it.
Because of what it demonstrates. Thailand's submission of 11 April 2019 nominates the three sanctuaries together — Phanom Rung on one volcano, Mueang Tam on the plain, Plai Bat on a third — and the argument is that they form one designed landscape. Survey found the Plai Bat sanctuaries planned on the same principles as Phanom Rung, east-facing and approached from barays. The nomination is about the ensemble; a component does not have to be the best-excavated one to carry weight in it.
Before you go, read the guide to Buddhism and temple etiquette in Thailand — dress, footwear, where photography is not welcome and how to behave around monks. The rest of Buriram’s temples are covered here too.
Every temple here sits in a place worth reading about on its own terms. The nationwide temple guide covers the other provinces to the same documentary standard as this page, and says on each one what the record establishes and what it does not.
If you are thinking about more than a visit: work out which Thai visa route fits your situation, and see what is available to rent and buy in residences across Thailand.
Every fact on this page is drawn from the sources above. Where they disagree, this page says so rather than choosing silently. Registrations, fees, hours and access change; confirm anything you are relying on with the authority concerned. BAANLYY LLC is a Nevada company and a listing portal, does not represent any temple, and offers no legal or religious advice.