The Ancient Town of Si Thep in Thailand: A Crossroads of Indianization
The ancient town of Si Thep, located in the western margin of the Khorat Plateau in northeast Thailand, is one of the largest and most enigmatic sites in mainland Southeast Asia, that developed between the mid-to-late first millennium ce and the thirteenth century.
Excavations and archaeological surveys over the past decades have yielded important and refined Hindu‒Buddhist sculptures as well as impressive architectural remains. In addition, a significant number of ancient inscriptions have been discovered at the site, written in Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese, Old Khmer and even possibly in Old Mon. This urban centre, situated on the fringes of the so-called Indianized kingdoms of Dvāravatī and Zhenla (later Angkor), plays a fundamental role in understanding the early history of the region as an international hub for cultural exchange networks between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.
The site of Si Thep was recently recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- Organisers : Émilie Aussant (USN) and Vincent Eltschinger (EPHE-PSL)
- Guest : Nicolas Revire, Researcher at the Art Institute of Chicago – Asian Art Department
- Date and time : Wednesday 18 October 2023, 12.00-14.00
- Venue and room : Campus Nation, room C 434; 8 avenue de Saint-Mandé, 75 012 Paris
About our guest
Nicolas Revire
Nicolas Revire, born French, holds a doctoral degree from the Université Paris 3, Sorbonne Nouvelle in France. He specializes in Buddhist art and archaeology, with a research focus on mainland Southeast Asia. He is general editor of Before Siam: Essays in Art and Archaeology (2014) and Decoding Southeast Asian Art: Studies in Honor of Piriya Krairiksh (2022). After nearly two decades of teaching and research at Thammasat University in Bangkok, he is presently the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Research Fellow at the Art Institute of Chicago, serving the Department of Arts of Asia.