A pre-Angkorian brick group in Sangkha district that the state and university registers place in the thirteenth Buddhist century — among the earliest Khmer sanctuaries standing anywhere in Thailand.
ปราสาทภูมิโปน · Prasat Phum Pon
| Official name | ปราสาทภูมิโปน — Prasat Phum Pon |
|---|---|
| Where | Dom, Sangkha, Surin |
| 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 เล่ม ๕๒ ตอนที่ ๗๕ หน้า ๓๗๑๓, ๘ มีนาคม ๒๔๗๘ The citation is as published by Surin Rajabhat University's Prasat Surin database. The gazette instrument was not opened by this run. It is one page after the citation the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre gives for Prasat Sikhoraphum in the same volume, which is what a single registration announcement covering many monuments looks like, and both give the day as 8 March. That is a third and fourth independent state or university reading in favour of ๘ มีนาคม against the ๔ มีนาคม of the Royal Gazette index lines quoted in the Buriram and Sisaket files. The conflict is not settled here; it is recorded. |
| Coordinates | 14.550000, 103.880000 Surin Rajabhat University, Prasat Surin database entry 8, which gives 14°33′00″ north 103°52′48″ east against an address in บ้านภูมิโปน ตำบลดม อำเภอสังขะ — checked against Dom subdistrict and Sangkha district before printing. The latitude is rounded to the arcminute at source and the coordinate should be read as locating the village group, not an individual tower |
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 inscriptions and the architecture are dated to adjacent centuries by different bodies and on different evidence, which is normal and is not a contradiction: letterforms and building style are separate clocks. Neither gives a founding year, and no source consulted names a founder or a dedication date.
Prasat Phum Pon stands at Ban Phum Pon in Tambon Dom, in Sangkha district near the southern edge of Surin province. It is a modest-looking group: four structures set roughly north to south, three of them brick towers and one a laterite base. What makes it matter is its age. Surin Rajabhat University's Prasat Surin register dates the architecture to the thirteenth Buddhist century in the pre-Angkorian manner known to Khmer art history as Prei Khmeng — that is, to a period before Angkor was founded, when Khmer power was centred further south and the temple form was still brick rather than the great sandstone constructions of later centuries.
The evidence is not only stylistic. Sanskrit inscriptions cut in Pallava script — the South Indian script from which most Southeast Asian writing systems descend — were recovered at the site, and the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre's inscriptions register catalogues them and assigns them to the twelfth Buddhist century by comparing their letterforms with other dated inscriptions. One of them is a broken sandstone fragment eight centimetres wide and fourteen high, found in May 1988 during Fine Arts Department excavation, now held at Phimai National Museum; another is at Surin National Museum. Both are incomplete. Neither names a builder and neither carries a date of its own, which is why this page gives no founding year.
The principal tower is the largest of the group, built of brick laid without mortar, with sandstone colonnettes and lintels — the pre-Angkorian combination. Standing in front of it, the thing to notice is how much plainer it is than Sikhoraphum sixty kilometres north. That is not provincial poverty but four centuries of difference in the Khmer building tradition, and seeing the two in one trip is the best argument for treating Surin as a single subject rather than a list of sanctuaries.
The name carries a story. Both the university register and the district's own accounts hold that Phum Pon derives from Khmer words meaning a hidden place, and connect it to a tale of a princess sheltered at the site during a war. The tale is told locally, it is recorded by state bodies as a local account, and it is not a dated fact. This page keeps it where it belongs.
Four structures set roughly north to south: three brick towers and one laterite base, of which the largest brick tower is the principal sanctuary.
Mortarless brickwork with sandstone colonnettes and lintels — the pre-Angkorian combination, and visibly plainer and earlier in feel than the Angkor-period carving at Sikhoraphum.
The laterite base at one end of the line, which carries no superstructure and is the clearest evidence on site that the group was built and rebuilt over time rather than at once.
The setting: a village compound in Tambon Dom rather than a fenced archaeological park, which is how most Khmer monuments in this province are met.
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 | Ordinary respectful dress. The monument stands in a village compound and people live around it. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Ban Phum Pon, Tambon Dom, Sangkha district, in the south of Surin province. Sangkha town is the nearest service centre. |
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.
Because of its date. Surin Rajabhat University's register places the architecture in the thirteenth Buddhist century, in the pre-Angkorian Prei Khmeng manner — before Angkor was founded. Very little Khmer building of that period is still standing in Thailand, which is what makes a modest group of brick towers in a village compound worth the drive.
Not much, because both that this run read are broken. The Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre catalogues them as Sanskrit in Pallava script and dates them to the twelfth Buddhist century by letterform comparison. One is a sandstone fragment eight by fourteen centimetres carrying two lines of text, found during Fine Arts Department excavation in May 1988. Neither names who made it and neither carries a date of its own.
Not at the monument. One fragment is held at Phimai National Museum in Nakhon Ratchasima province and another at Surin National Museum, according to the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre's inscriptions register.
It is a local tradition, not a record, and this guide treats it that way. The account that a princess was hidden here in wartime is told across the district and is noted by state and university registers as a local telling. No inscription or register supports it as history, and the derivation of the name from Khmer words for a hidden place is itself given as a likely reading rather than an established one.
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 Surin’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.