Prasat Mueang Sing Historical Park

The ancient city of Mueang Sing, surrounded by limestone hills, is located on the bank of the Khwae Noi about 45 Km from Kanchanaburi in Sai Yok district. The ancient city is square shaped, surrounded by moats, ramparts and laterite city walls. The laterite wall of an initial height of 5 m around the city is 1400 m long by 880 m wide with gates on the four sides. The city has a surface of about 641 Rai (100 hectare). The south wall winds along the Khwae Noi River, while there is an embankment of earth on each of the inner sides of the wall.

The outer sides are enclosed with seven moats and ramparts, constructed probably for the water control system and as well for fortification. The city contained six ponds used for religious and irrigation purposes. Mueang Sing and Prasat Mueang Sing can be dated to the 12th and 13th centuries. The city layout and architecture in the Bayon style of the Khmer art, indicates the relationship between this ancient city and the ancient Khmer Kingdom during the reign of King Jayavarman VII (1177 – 1237 AD). The principal structure, the Khmer Prasat Mueang Sing (Tower of the City of Lions), is believed to have been the westernmost outpost of the Angkor-centred Khmer empire. A wide range of artefacts, including temple carvings, religious statues, implements and pottery shards indicate the once thriving city must have been inhabited from approximately the 12th to 14th centuries. There are four monuments inside the city wall of Mueang Sing.

The principal monument is almost in the middle of the city, just a bit to the southeast, facing the eastern gate. It is a building complex comprising wall, gates, gallery and several buildings. It was built of laterite blocks decorated with stucco reliefs and plastered. The main building is a single tower standing at the center. This building is encompassed by a laterite gallery, the southern side of which was never completed. There are four gopura (gateways), one on each side of the gallery wall. The monument was laid out in the form of a mandala, a mystical diagram of the universe. Mount Meru is symbolized by the Prasat in the middle of the sanctuary, while the continents and oceans are represented by ponds and ditches. In the northern gallery there is a bas-relief of the four armed Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara. In front of the prasat in the south-east corner is the library, where the Buddhist scripts were kept. 

Ayutthaya Historical Research