via The Past, 17 May 2022: Prof Charles Higham recollects the excavation of the ‘princess’ of Khok Phanom Di.
Our radiocarbon dates reveal that she lived about 3,600 years ago, in a village that commanded the estuary of the Bang Pakong River, a choke point in trading that brought all stone to the site, and from which cargoes of pottery vessels were dispatched. The wealth of the community – and we have traced 17-20 generations in the superimposed burials there – brought in the exotic shells that were transformed into ornaments. Her ancestors came to the estuary from their ultimate homeland in the Yangtze Valley.
Back to the dig. By a lucky coincidence, the Director-General of the Fine Arts Department had arranged to visit and inspect our operation a day or two after we had fully revealed the Princess. A person’s status is measured in Thailand by the size of their entourage, and his was pretty impressive, including representatives of the press and television news. I arranged to have a cover over the grave, and after a convivial lunch in the temple meeting room, I invited him over for the ceremonial revelation. There was a collective gasp as the cover was removed. I took him down into the square for a close look, and he had a microphone pressed to my lips for the benefit of the national TV news that same evening. I did my best, marshaling my limited range of Thai words and it seemed I was understandable. After he departed, we removed the skeleton, and on turning the upper body over, found the layers of shell beads replicated on her back. At least two layers of clothing could be discerned. The Princess was not buried alone. Alongside her was a grave big enough for an adult, which contained the ochre covered skeleton of a little girl aged about 18 months, covered in about 15,000 shell beads and, lo and behold, a tiny clay anvil for shaping pots. Surely, she was the Princess’s daughter. And even more remarkable, a narrow and shallow grave right next to that of the Princess contained the headless skeleton of a man accompanied by just two small pots.
