A Dvaravati walled town two kilometres long, occupied for three thousand years, with the finds from it in a museum at the gate.
เมืองอู่ทอง · Mueang U Thong
| Official name | เมืองอู่ทอง — Mueang U Thong |
|---|---|
| Where | U Thong, U Thong, Suphan Buri |
| 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 Royal Gazette vol. 52, part 75, p. 3712, 8 March B.E. 2478, item 35 of the Suphan Buri section Read on the page. The 1935 list enters เมืองอู่ทอง under Amphoe Chorakhe Sam Phan, Tambon Krachan, as item 35, with เขาพระ as item 36 immediately after it. Neither of those district or subdistrict names is the one the modern register gives, which is Amphoe U Thong, Tambon U Thong. No state instrument naming that change was found in this run, so it is left as an open question rather than asserted. No land boundary has ever been determined for the town itself, although the earthwork that rings it, the Khao Phra group and several individual monuments inside the town are separately registered with boundaries of their own. |
| Coordinates | 14.373933, 99.884827 Fine Arts Department national monument register, record 0004919, which places the town in Tambon U Thong, Amphoe U Thong, about 30 kilometres west of the provincial town and against the ridge the register names. |
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.
This is the rare case where the record is strong and there is almost no tradition to keep apart from it. The evidence is archaeological, the sequence is a sequence of layers rather than of reigns, and nobody official claims a founding event at all.
Start with the shape, because the shape is the argument. The Fine Arts Department register describes an oval town, not a square one, running north-east to south-west, about a kilometre across and two kilometres long, ringed by a moat and an earth rampart. Square towns in this part of the world tend to be laid out to a plan. Oval ones tend to follow the ground. The register notes the town sits about six metres above sea level, with the Chorakhe Sam Phan stream running along its east side and a line of hills about a kilometre to the west, and that the land tilts from those hills down towards the Tha Chin. The town is where it is because of water and a ridge.
People were living on that ground about three thousand years before any of it was a town. The register lists what came out of the excavations: polished stone axes, beads, fired pottery, iron spindle whorls for spinning thread, bronze axes, harpoons, spears and a great deal of other metalwork. It describes a farming society on fertile ground with easy access to the coast, and draws the obvious conclusion that those two things together are why the settlement could grow into a city at all. Then Indian cultural influence arrives, and by the eleventh to twelfth Buddhist centuries the place is a centre of Dvaravati culture.
Inside the walls and around them stand a lot of monuments, and the register makes a point of saying that almost all of them are Buddhist. The exception is a group at the foot of Khao Khok, about five kilometres outside the town, which is Brahmanical. That single sentence is the most useful thing in the entry, because it tells you the religious arrangement of a Dvaravati landscape: the Buddhist establishment inside and immediately around the town, the Brahmanical one set apart from it.
What came out of the ground went into a building at the edge of the site. The register names the important finds as dharmachakra, inscriptions, silver coinage, Buddha images and votive tablets, and says they are displayed at the U Thong National Museum, which is on Malaiman Road in Tambon U Thong. That museum is the one place in this whole province where an official source states opening times and an admission figure, and the entry below gives them.
Two further registered monuments belong to this story and are not covered here. Khao Phra, the hill sanctuary now called Wat Khao Phra Si Sanphetchayaram, is item 36 of the 1935 list, registered on the same page as the town. The ancient embankment that rings the town is registered separately with a determined boundary, as is the Phu Hang Nak and Khok Chang Din group at Chorakhe Sam Phan. A second U Thong run has those three waiting for it.
The town outline itself: an oval moat and earth rampart about one kilometre wide and two kilometres long, set on an axis running north-east to south-west.
The ridge a kilometre to the west, which the register names hill by hill as Khao Thung Din Dam, Khao Phu Thong, Khao Ta Kaeo and Khao Rang Kapoet, the last of these the southernmost and the highest.
Monuments inside and immediately around the walls, almost all of them Buddhist, several of them excavated and restored.
The Brahmanical group at the foot of Khao Khok, about five kilometres outside the town, which is the exception the register is careful to name.
The U Thong National Museum on Malaiman Road, holding the dharmachakra, the inscriptions, the silver coinage, the Buddha images and the votive tablets that came out of the site.
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 | U Thong National Museum: Wednesday to Sunday and public holidays, 09.00 to 16.00, closed Monday and Tuesday. The archaeological site itself has no published hours. |
|---|---|
| Admission | Thai nationals: 30 baht. Foreign visitors: 200 baht. |
| Dress | An open archaeological landscape rather than a working monastery, so ordinary outdoor clothing is fine. Cover shoulders and knees at any shrine that is in use. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Malaiman Road, Tambon U Thong, Amphoe U Thong, about 30 kilometres west of Suphan Buri town. The museum is at the edge of the site. |
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.
No. It is a Dvaravati walled town, registered as a national ancient monument in 1935. Almost every monument in and around it is Buddhist, which is why it belongs in this guide.
About one kilometre wide and two kilometres long, oval rather than square, ringed by a moat and an earth rampart on a north-east to south-west axis.
The Fine Arts Department register puts occupation at about three thousand years, on excavated stone axes, beads, pottery, iron spindle whorls and bronze tools, well before the Dvaravati town existed.
At the U Thong National Museum on Malaiman Road at the edge of the site, which holds the dharmachakra, the inscriptions, the silver coinage, the images and the votive tablets.
Its own contact page gives Wednesday to Sunday and public holidays, 09.00 to 16.00, closed Monday and Tuesday, at 30 baht for Thai visitors and 200 baht for foreign visitors. Another department page prints 150 baht.
Almost. The register names one exception, a Brahmanical group at the foot of Khao Khok about five kilometres outside the 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 Suphan Buri’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.