A large moated and embanked ancient town at Phanat Nikhom, inland from the Chonburi coast, registered as a national ancient monument in 1935 and still substantially unexcavated.
เมืองพระรถ · Mueang Phra Rot
| Official name | เมืองพระรถ — Mueang Phra Rot |
|---|---|
| Where | Na Phra That, Phanat Nikhom, Chonburi |
| Royal temple class | Not established from an official register. |
| Monastic order | Not recorded in any register we could read. |
| Ancient monument | Registered national ancient monument ราชกิจจานุเบกษา เล่มที่ ๕๒ ตอนที่ ๗๕, ๘ มีนาคม ๒๔๗๘ This citation matters beyond this page. It is given by the Fine Arts Department itself, in its own article on the site, in the words กรมศิลปากรประกาศขึ้นทะเบียนโบราณสถาน ในราชกิจจานุเบกษา เล่มที่ 52 ตอนที่ 75 ลงวันที่ 8 มีนาคม 2478. Three earlier provinces in this guide — Buriram, Sisaket and Surin — carry monuments registered by what is evidently the same 1935 announcement, and every reading of it until now came at second hand from the ONEP register, a university database or a ministry data centre, against Royal Gazette index lines that give part 25 and 4 March instead. This is the registering authority stating part 75 and 8 March directly. เล่ม ๕๒ itself has still not been opened by any run. |
Na Phra That, Phanat Nikhom, Chonburi
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.
The town is routinely described in Thai popular history as Dvaravati, of roughly the twelfth to sixteenth Buddhist centuries. That attribution is widespread and may well be right, but the Fine Arts Department article read for this page does not make it, and nothing else this run could reach makes it in a state voice. It is therefore not asserted here.
Mueang Phra Rot lies in Village 1 of Tambon Na Phra That, in Phanat Nikhom district, thirty-odd kilometres inland from the Chonburi shore. It is not a ruin in the way that word is usually meant on this site. There is no standing sanctuary, no carved lintel, no chedi rising out of a field. What is there is the shape of a town: a substantial earthwork bank and the moat cut outside it, enclosing an area large enough that the modern settlement sits inside it without filling it, with traces of occupation found both within the enclosure and beyond it.
The Fine Arts Department registered it as a national ancient monument in the Royal Gazette announcement of 8 March B.E. 2478 — 1935 — which places it among the first generation of sites the Thai state protected in law. That is a striking fact about a monument almost nobody outside the district can name. It was recognised as significant nearly ninety years ago and it has been quietly sitting there ever since, with the district growing around it.
Two things from it have travelled further than the town has. One is the mound the department calls เนินพระธาตุ, the principal monument inside the enclosure. The other is a religious image known as Phra Phanatsabodi, which the department names as the important object recovered from the site and which has given its name to a whole class of eastern-seaboard imagery. Beyond those two names the department article read for this page is brief, and this page does not pad it out.
It is worth being clear about what this entry does not say. Thai popular writing about Mueang Phra Rot dates it confidently to the Dvaravati period, roughly the twelfth to sixteenth Buddhist centuries, and that is very likely the right bracket. But the state source read here does not say it, and a founding period asserted on this page without a register behind it would be the exact failure this guide exists to avoid. The date is left open and the route to closing it is named below.
The earthwork itself — a bank and an outer moat enclosing a large irregular area, which is what survives of the town wall and is best read from the district road rather than from inside the settlement.
เนินพระธาตุ, the monument mound the Fine Arts Department names as the principal ancient structure within the enclosure.
The modern village and farmland occupying the interior, which is the ordinary condition of a Thai moated town and is the reason the site reads as landscape rather than as a monument.
The subdistrict name, Na Phra That, which preserves the mound in the administrative map long after the structure itself stopped being legible.
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 | Village 1, Tambon Na Phra That, Phanat Nikhom district, inland from Chonburi city. |
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.
The town rather than a building. An earthen rampart and the moat outside it enclose a large area, with occupation traces inside and outside, and a monument mound the Fine Arts Department calls เนินพระธาตุ stands within it. There is no standing sanctuary to visit.
Not established by any state source this page could read. Thai popular history dates it to the Dvaravati period, roughly the twelfth to sixteenth Buddhist centuries, but the Fine Arts Department article consulted gives no period at all, and this page does not assert one on its behalf.
Yes. The Fine Arts Department registered it in the Royal Gazette announcement of 8 March B.E. 2478, which is 1935, making it one of the earlier sites protected under Thai law.
A religious image the Fine Arts Department names as the significant object recovered from this town. It has since given its name to a recognised class of eastern-seaboard imagery, which is how a site most people have never heard of has nevertheless left a mark on the study of Thai art.
No, and confusing them is easy. Si Mahosot is an ancient town in Prachinburi province, about sixty kilometres away, and it is also sometimes called Mueang Phra Rot because the same legend is told about both. Any record giving อำเภอศรีมโหสถ or จังหวัดปราจีนบุรี is describing the other town.
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 Chonburi’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.