By all reports, Ayutthaya was magnificent. Set on a riverine island between the Chao Phraya, Lopburi and Prasak rivers, the inner city was fortified by a 12-kilometre-long and five-metre-thick brick wall. Nearly a hundred gates opened to roads and canals reaching into some of the most fertile land in the region. Gilded chedis and Khmer-style spires topped temples and palaces amid a glittering skyline. According to Cambridge University’s A History of Thailand, a French Jesuit remarked in 1687 that “a single Idol” in Wat Phra Si Sanphet was “richer than all the Tabernacles of the Churches of Europe”.