The largest jug in the world. Archaeological finds of a megalith: Valley of Jars in Laos. Legends of the Valley of Jugs

Laos is a state in Southeast Asia with the capital Vientiane. It borders on Thailand in the west, Vietnam in the east, Cambodia in the south, Yunnan Province in China in the north, and Myanmar in the northwest.

The neighbors - the Vietnamese and Thais - are sure: there are simply no greater lazy people than the Laotians in the world. The old saying “the Vietnamese plant rice, the Khmers watch the planting, and the Laotians listen to the rice grow” has not lost its relevance to this day. It is not surprising that the Laotians are not offended by “lazy people”. Sometimes it seems that they even cherish and nurture this trait of national character: they are not in a hurry, meditate and quietly pray in dozens of ancient temples.

This approach to life allows you to live without worries, and at the same time stand out from your neighbors and attract “your” tourists. There are few civilized entertainments that other Asian countries are full of here. But there are untouched jungles, numerous semi-wild tribes and romantic means of transportation such as antediluvian “passenger” barges or “cargo-passenger” elephants plying along the Mekong.

An archaeological site in Laos that is worth a visit when traveling to this country is the Valley of Jars, in Xiang Khouang Province.

The Valley of the Jars is home to thousands of large stone pots scattered at the foot of the Annam Range, which separates Laos and Vietnam.

The size of the pots ranges from 50 centimeters to 3 meters, their weight reaches 6 tons.

The age of the jugs, according to archaeologists, is estimated to be from 1500 to 2000 years.

IN at the moment the issue of assigning the status to the Valley of Jugs is being resolved World Heritage UNESCO. The situation is complicated by the fact that Xiang Khouang province was subjected to massive bombing by the American Air Force during the so-called Secret War in the 70s. For this reason, a significant part of the valley remains inaccessible to tourists.

Although more than 400 pitcher sites have been discovered, only three sites are open to tourists. The largest group of jars near the city of Phonsavan is called the First Site, which contains about 250 pots of various sizes. Since the jugs lie among unexploded shells, only three sites are open to visitors; visiting other sites is considered dangerous.

Undoubtedly, the plain of vessels would attract many more tourists if it were not for the fact that more than 30% of the bombs dropped have not yet exploded, and remain lost and scattered throughout the valley. According to researchers, approximately 250 thousand hidden booby traps are still in Laos, and tragic incidents involving them are reported almost every week.

There are many different versions of the origin of the mysterious Valley of Jugs.

1. Water vessels

Some sources mention that similar stone jars have also been found in countries such as India and Indonesia. Their locations coincide with trade routes. In connection with this circumstance, there is a hypothesis that the jugs were made for traders from different countries. During the monsoons, rainwater was collected in stone vessels, and travelers and animals could quench their thirst. The beads and other objects found could well have served as offerings to the gods so that rain would come down and fill the jugs with water.

2. Funeral rites

A cave was found in the Valley of Jugs, in which two artificial openings were created. Traces of soot remained inside. It is believed that this cave served as a crematorium, and the openings were chimneys. The condition of the objects and remains found in the jars indicate signs of cremation, and those around the flasks indicate burials without burning. There are several interpretations to explain this fact.

One of the theories. The bodies of the upper classes may have been cremated so that their souls could go to heaven, while the commoners were buried so that their souls could serve as servants of the earth.

Another version. Alternatively, the body of the deceased was placed in a jug, and after some time, when the soul had passed on to another world, it was cremated, and then buried a second time.

Third interpretation. It is likely that at first one person was buried in the jug, and over the years the relatives of the deceased were buried around the vessel.

Legends

According to one of the Laotian legends, huge giants lived in this valley a long time ago and the jugs belonged to them.

Another legend says that the jars were made by King Khung Trung after he defeated his enemies. They were intended for cooking large quantity Lao Lao rice wine in honor of the victory.

The Valley of Jugs is a group of unique sites containing unusual historical and archaeological monuments - huge stone jugs. These mysterious objects are located in Xiang Khouang province, Laos.

The Valley of the Jars is home to thousands of large stone pots scattered at the foot of the Annam Range, which separates Laos and Vietnam. The size of the jugs ranges from 0.5 to 3 meters, and the weight of the largest reaches 6 thousand kg. Most giant stone pots are cylindrical in shape, but oval and rectangular jars are also found.

Many vessels stand upright, some are tumbled on their sides. Next to the “jugs” themselves you can sometimes find stone disks, which, apparently, were used as lids. These pots are made from granite, sandstone, rock and calcined coral. Scientists suggest that the age of the stone bowls is supposed to be 1,500 - 2,000 years.

The territory of the valley includes more than 60 sites on which groups of gigantic vessels are located. All the platforms are stretched along one line, which may be evidence that there used to be an ancient trade route here, which was served by platforms with jugs. The city of Phonsavan is concentrated greatest number jugs, this place is called the First Platform, on which there are about 250 vessels of various sizes.

The first researcher who worked here to clarify historical facts was Madeleine Colani. In the 30s of the last century, a French woman described most of the sites, and also discovered a nearby cave with burials and various remains of funeral rituals. After it, until recently, no one conducted detailed studies in the valley. Now the main expert on this topic is the Belgian Julia Van den Berg.

There are a huge number of theories and assumptions regarding who created such unique vessels and for what purposes. According to scientists, these jugs were used by the ancient people living in southeast Asia, whose culture and customs still remain unknown.

Historians and anthropologists suggest that the huge jars could have been funeral urns, and were used in funeral rituals. However, no remains or grave goods were found at the sites. All this was discovered separately at some distance.

There is a version that the pots were used to collect and store rainwater. Despite the fact that no settlements have yet been discovered in the immediate vicinity, this theory seems more plausible. The fact is that the platforms with jugs are not located concentrically, but are built in one straight line, that is, quite possibly, along some path. Here caravans could rest and stock up on water for further movement.

Laotian legends tell that giants once lived in the valley, and the jugs belonged to them.

Well, the version of local residents says that rice wine was made and stored in megalithic jugs. No matter how many versions and theories are put forward, the Valley of the Jugs undoubtedly remains an unsolved mystery.

Over the past few years, Laotian authorities have been fighting to include the famous Valley of Jars on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The main reason why it has not yet been given this status is the consequences of the heavy bombing by the US Air Force that the valley area was subjected to. One of the main criteria for accepting an object into the list is clearing the area from shells, so this work is now being carried out quite actively. Three main sites have already been cleared. They are open to tourists and archaeologists.

The Valley of Jars is a territory consisting of 60 sites where very unusual stone vessels of unknown origin were discovered. This strange place located in Xiang Khouang Province.

The estimated age of these amazing finds is 2000 years, but who created them and why is a real mystery. According to Laotian legends, ancient jugs were common utensils of the giants who lived in this valley many thousands of years ago.

Scientific versions suggest that the vessels were used as funeral urns or as containers for collecting water, and perhaps storing rice wine. Despite the global divergence of views on the practical use of stone bowls, no one can prove that they are absolutely right.

Most jugs are characterized by a cylindrical shape, but sometimes cubic examples are also found here. The size of the vessels ranges from 0.5 to 3 meters, and the weight of the largest specimens reaches 6 tons. In the same area, round stone discs were found that may have served as lids. To save unique place It was proposed to include the Valley of Jars on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

In the 1930s, Madeleine Colani from France conducted the first archaeological research here. It was she who found a cave with burials and ashes in the vicinity of the valley, which required a long and detailed study, but despite all the painstaking work, historians and archaeologists were never able to collect all the necessary information.

During civil war Some of the massive bombing by the American Air Force fell on these lands. The explosions destroyed the cave and damaged a significant number of stone vessels. Moreover, many unexploded shells, which posed a threat of explosions, became a problem for researchers and slowed down the scientific process significantly.

Nowadays, especially for tourists and researchers to visit, local volunteers managed to clear the three best-preserved sites from aerial bombs. Thanks to these brave people, the world was able to see these stunning photographs from the Valley of Jugs.

There is a place in Laos called the Valley of the Jars. The name of the area was not given by chance. There are hundreds of stone…not stupas, not pools, not cisterns, but capacious (for the most part) containers.

It would seem that what could be simpler than a stone container? Take a boulder, hollow out a cavity inside - and use it! But if the product is complex in shape, equipped with a lid like a saucepan, dug into the ground and has cyclopean dimensions - what is it? How was it used? Who needed it? When was it created?

There are no clear answers to these questions. Due to the impossibility of conducting full-scale archaeological excavations the solution to the historical problem is postponed until the indefinite future.

War was raging in the Valley of Jugs...

That is why archaeological research - and at the same time any tourist activities - are prohibited in the Valley of Jugs, and access to dangerous areas is closed. Meanwhile, stone containers with a similar structure, found here, as well as in Thailand and India, are very unusual and interesting.

In some places the ban is not particularly strict, and you can see the legendary jugs!

Legends of the Valley of Jugs

Those who do not believe in giants talk about caravans that wandered around Southeast Asia and needed long-term storage of food supplies and water. It’s as if these caravan workers chiseled both containers and lids out of stone - and used them for centuries.

Adherents of funeral ritual traditions (they consider any found artifact as an object of worship) talk about the use of stone jars as either sarcophagi, or tombs, or containers for storing the ashes of rulers laid to rest by fire.

Tourists most like the version that tells about King Khung Trung, who decided to celebrate the victory in the next civil strife with a copious libation. Taking into account the large number of troops and the weak intoxicating ability of rice and millet mash, a lot of containers for preparing drinks were required!

True, in this case a huge army of stonemasons would have to be put to work chiseling stone. Where can you get so many qualified personnel and suitable tools? After all, iron was almost unknown at that time...

Locals simplified the legend to a mere taboo. They say that evil caught among people was placed in jugs under heavy lids. Languishing in the trap, it was slowly absorbed into the stone. Therefore, children are not only prohibited from getting inside, but even touching the stone jugs!

A particularly exotic theory talks about placing stone jugs (or under their bottoms) and other treasures in the bodies.

The mysterious age of finds in the Valley of Jugs

But who could spend three hundred years hewing and gouging out hundreds and hundreds of boulders, some of which weighed a good ten tons? And if unknown craftsmen made some kind of utilitarian containers, why did they often leave too thick a layer of stone? Excessively thick walls reduce the capacity of the vessel...

Anthropological finds also support the hypothesis about the ancient origin of stone jugs. Australian specialists working in the demined area of ​​the Valley of Jugs discovered human remains. Radiocarbon dating gave the exact age of the bones - 2500 years.

Is the Valley of Jugs an ancient cemetery?

The pits filled with bones were covered with a massive gravestone, and the dead were not disturbed. While bones were being accumulated to fill the new pit, the remains were kept in one of the stone or ceramic jars.

However, simple calculations give stunning results that have little connection with reality. In the Valley of Jugs alone there are more than a thousand vessels of various sizes. Considering the “productivity” of the jars as sarcophagi, it should be assumed that this burial enterprise served a multimillion-dollar city. There are no traces of existence at all large settlement There are no jars near the Valley of Jugs!

Then the Valley of Jars is a warehouse?

There is no need to talk about storing water or wine in vessels. The warm climate of Laos will not allow the liquid to be preserved in a usable form.

History of exploration of the Valley of Jugs

Having found Bronze Age artifacts and fragments of human bones in and around the jars, Parmentier lost interest in the Valley and went home. Madeleine Colani, who replaced her compatriot in the scientific post, worked with great zeal.

Having suggested the existence of a forgotten civilization in these places, Madeleine released a two-volume review of her findings. The archaeological community got acquainted with the published materials, did not see a sensation in them - and the book was no longer reprinted, nor was it translated into other languages.

The resumption of research occurred at the very end of the twentieth century. The Japanese Nitta and the Laotian Tong-Sa found several burials in the Valley of Jars, and decorative images were found on one of the stone vessels.

In total, in the 115 years since the discovery of the Valley of Jugs, not a single mystery of the origin and use of stone containers has been solved, and the hypotheses expressed have remained unproven and unrefuted.

What is known about the stone containers from the Valley of Jugs?

The height of stone products ranges from 30 cm to 3.5 m. The largest jug weighs about 10 tons. The mass of most large jugs fits into two tons.

A number of stone lids have been preserved for stone jugs. There is every reason to believe that previously each vessel was equipped with an individual lid. However, people directed most of them to perform more pressing tasks.

Some of the surviving lids are simple disks carved from stone. Some are real works of art, decorated with stylized carved images of people and animals.

The material for the jugs and lids was local natural stone. Here is a quote from a laboratory study report on a group of mason jars: “Both the untreated and polished containers are made of , . Some of the vessels have several types of rocks in their wall structure.”

In this case, we are talking about natural fusion, and not an artificial connection of different types of rocks. In addition, the examination refuted the working hypothesis about the possible production of jugs from artificial stone (concrete). The presence of artifacts (stone, bronze, iron plates) near the jars that could qualify as tools speaks in favor of the stonemason hypothesis of the origin of the vessels.

True, local residents acquainted researchers with oral (and completely false) legends, which reported on the preparation of a plastic mass from boiled collagen, sugar syrup, and mineral fillers.

There is no more reliable information about stone jugs.

Valley of the Jugs: an equation of only variables

• find out who made hundreds of stone jars and why;
• lost covers (at least some);
• clarify the dating of the manufacture of each of the stone jugs;
• understand the technology of manufacturing massive vessels;
• find quarries and develop technology for transporting raw material blocks to the place where jugs are made.

Mysterious corners of greatness past civilizations scattered all over the world, but not all of them are equally known. Like the giants of Easter Island and Stonehenge, the Valley of Jars in Laos hides an inexplicable mystery of its origin. Several sites strewn with huge stone pots have gathered around them many legends and legends.

The name “Valley of Jars” (English: Plain of Jars) is not allegorical and has nothing to do with either the region where pottery was developed or the plant characteristics of the area. This valley is a vast area almost in the center of Laos, in the Xiang Khouang province. It is located near administrative center province - the city of Phonsavan. At dozens of separate sites at the foot of the Annam mountain spur, massive stone containers of various sizes are literally scattered. There are more than 60 such training grounds in this area, but only three are the most visited. All of them are located on relatively elevated hills and are open to visits by both archaeological scientists and ordinary tourists and travelers. Most of the sites are closed because the area was bombed during the civil war, leaving many unexploded shells in the ground.

The size and shape of the containers are different. There are specimens only half a meter high, but there are also giant three-meter ones. stone sculptures. Most stand upright, some are tumbled to the side. Next to the “jugs” themselves you can sometimes find stone disks, which, apparently, were used as lids. The weight of the jugs reaches 6 tons, and if you pay attention to the material from which they are made - granite, other rocks, even fossilized corals - it becomes clear that they were not made locally. This means that, in addition to the mystery of their intended purpose, the question arises, how were they delivered here?

By the way, they were called “jugs” only because of their external resemblance. The direct purpose of the objects found here is not known to anyone for certain. There are several stable hypotheses about this, but none of them is confirmed.

Story

There is very little information about the origin, use and cultural significance of the sites in the Valley of the Jars. This is largely due to insufficient scientific archaeological research of this territory. Local residents also limit themselves in this regard only to legends and traditions, without having any exact facts.

Currently, most archaeologists and anthropologists believe that the stone sculptures are about 1500 - 2000 years old, that is, they already belong to our era. The authorship, in their opinion, belongs to one of the ancient peoples of Southeast Asia, knowledge of whose culture is in modern history very scarce.

The first researcher who worked here to clarify historical facts was Madeleine Colani. In the 30s of the last century, a French woman described most of the sites, and also discovered a nearby cave with burials and various remains of funeral rituals. After it, until recently, no one conducted detailed studies in the valley. Now the main expert on this topic is the Belgian Julia Van den Berg.

Hypotheses about the purpose of the valley pots fall mainly into two groups. The first group includes assumptions about their use as funeral urns. This theory is supported by the presence on the territory of objects similar to ovens, in which ritual burning could be carried out. These assumptions are refuted by the simple fact that no remains or burial goods were found at the sites. All this was discovered separately at some distance.

The second group of hypotheses involves the use of pots to collect and store rainwater. Despite the fact that no settlements have yet been discovered in the immediate vicinity, this theory seems more plausible. The fact is that the platforms with jugs are not located concentrically, but are built in one straight line, that is, quite possibly, along some path. This reveals their purpose as transhipment point on an ancient trade route. Here caravans could rest and stock up on water for further movement.

Residents of the province have their own views on this matter. According to their beliefs, giants once lived in the valley, and the jugs belonged to them. Even if such consideration does not amount to reliable historical fact, but it does a good job of explaining how the heavy sculptures ended up in the very center of Laos.

In the 70s, the American Air Force heavily bombed the province, so a number of jugs were destroyed, and unexploded shells remained in the ground at almost all sites. Dangerous areas, and the majority of them in the valley, are currently closed to the public, which explains the low availability of information for such a large-scale cultural monument.

The Laotian authorities have been fighting for the inclusion of the Valley of Jars in the list of World Heritage Sites in recent years. Cultural Heritage UNESCO, but so far without success. One of the main criteria for accepting an object into the list is clearing the territory from shells, so this work is now being carried out quite actively. Three main sites have already been cleared. They are open to tourists and archaeologists.

Tourist Information

Available testing areas – sites – Valley of the Jars are located at varying distances from the provincial capital. The closest one is the first site, just 3 km from the city. Here you will find more than 250 pots and have the opportunity to see shells dug out of the ground. Neutralized, of course. Also in the valley you can see a number of tools, ritual paraphernalia and remains found here.

Taking into account all the above information, we can conclude that the Valley of Jars is a tasty morsel for any adventurer and traveler. The pictures alone will be worth it. If you find yourself in Laos, be sure to visit these massive sculptures. However, you shouldn’t count on a full-fledged excursion with a lot of details. Rather, it will be just a fascinating walk among human-sized stone mortars.