The Lop Buri Style from Khmer Civilisation

Nepali Times introduces history of Thailand through Buddhist architecture in an eight-part series.

The Architecture of the Lop Buri Style (7th-14th centuries AD) is the last destination of the Ancient Khmer civilisation.

People called ‘Lop Buri Art’ because Lop Buri or Lavo or Lavapura used to be an important town where many antiquities  of the Khmer tradition have been discovered. Nowadays, this style of art is also called Khmer Art in Thailand.

This is because a large number of Khmer antiquities have also been found in other parts of Thailand, especially the northeast, in addition to Lop Buri and other provinces in central Thailand. Beside, the style of these antiquities is, for the most part, similar to that of the Khmer art in Cambodia.

For the first half of the 11th century, a great number of religious buildings were built in northeast Thailand such as Prasat Muang Tam in Buri Ram. The style of this group of sanctuary tower markedly resembles the Khmer Baphuon style.

The monument consists of five brick structures, the central structure already collapsed, and elected on the same laterite base, with a sandstone gallery surrounding it farther from the base.

At the four corners outside the circumscribing gallery are dug four L-shaped ponds each edged by a stone naga. These constructions are also enclosed by a laterite wall with a gopura, a crowned or covered gate to the temple, in the middle of each wall side.

The most famous structures in northeastern Thailand are Prasat Phanom Rung in Buri Ram (pictured top) and Prasat Phimai (pictured below) in Nakhon Ratchasima, both of which are likely dated between the late 11th and the early 12th centuries.