The Journal of the Siam Society Vol. LXIV, Part 1-2, 1976 - Khamkoo

298 REVIEW ARTICLES
Bronson excavated two sites in South Sumatra, namely Penyaringan
Air Bersih and Geding Suro. I wonder why he never dug Kedukan
Bukit, Talang Tuwo and Talaga Batu where 7th century inscriptions
were set up, because normally inscriptions would surely be put up in the
built-up areas of their time. Or why not dig around the large stone
Buddha image and small stupas on the Bukit Seguntang? Or perhaps
be did and Wolters failed to mention it. I ask this question because I
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have known archaeologists to have dug holes in the wrong places and
produced same very nice results. There was an English archaeologist
who went digging' for the capital of Chih-tu at Satingphra in Singora
province. She found a lovely brick wall so I didn't have the heart to tell .
her that she was digging at the wrong site. I wasn't sure whether she
would cry or laugh. Then a French archaeologist went to dig for the
old city of U-Thong in the Central Plain. As be had a reputation, some
students from the Faculty of Archaeology, Silpakorn University, were
sent to observe his methods of excavating. The students could not speak
French nor could the Frenchman speak Thai, so there was no
communication between them. So the students just stood around
observing from a distance. Then some yokels came and observed too.
They could not speak French either, so they asked the students, "What
is Monsieur !'archaeologist digging for?" The students told them, "He
is digging for the lost city of U-Thong." The yokels pondered for a
while, chewing bard on their straws, and then asked, "Then why is the
mongsoo digging in that old river bed?" Meanwhile the archaeologist
collected his considerable booty and when be wrote his report, instead of
saying what I would have said, "There has been a lot of rain here lately,
hasn't there?" be thought U-Thong was destroyed by flood. I cannot
vouch for the truth of this story, nor for the report which I haven't seen,
but such is what one of the students who were sent to observe the
excavations told me. As for Thai archaeologists, they never seen to know
where to dig until thieves have taken most of loot. Yarang in Patani
province is a case in point. This site could turn out to be Langasuka,
the land of the Malay fairies. But who cares, ask the archaeologists.
Meanwhile, to return to Bronson, the Air Bersib site produced
sherds of the 14th centuries, and a few pieces that might have been 13th