The Fine Arts Department is to seek help from the Fourth Army Region to stop gold rush at a privately owned palm tree plantation in Khao Chaison district of Phatthalung where ancient gold ornaments dated back over 800 years ago were found.
The fine arts chief Anek Sihamart said if the gold rush is not stopped, gold prospectors could seriously damage the ancient site with historical values.
The gold artifacts which prospectors dug up were confirmed to be pure gold and dated over 800 years to pre-Sukhothai period, officials of the 12th Fine Arts regional office in Nakhon Si Thammarat province said.
The fine arts team visited the palm tree plantation to inspect the site Tuesday following the ancient gold rush.
The site where gold was found was said by villagers of being an old canal bed which has turned dried and buried. They also said an ancient Chinese vessel was uncovered there years ago.
Already found by diggers include over a hundred of gold plates. Others are bracelets, nuggets, and animal pendants.
The fine arts officials said the sizes and descriptions of the ancient gold objects match those in the pre-Sukothai period and resemble the pattern of gold used to build the top spike of the ancient Jedi of Wat Mahadhat temple in Nakhon Si Thammarat.
They are now urgently explaining to the diggers about the gold’s significance and asked them to stop digging to prevent any damages to the artifacts.
They said they have explained villagers to understand the more important aspect that the gold could reveal is the history.
“We stressed that if they kept digging with hoes, they could destroy any history we could find here,” one fine arts official said.
One gold prospector said she dug up a gold plate with some Chinese letters on it.
The gold plate resembles a paper that has been folded many times with size of 5×5 cm in width.
The gold piece was found 20 centimetres underground near the old canal bed that runs through the farm. She said she would be worshipping the gold, as she believes that it must belong to some ancient Thai ancestors.
She said her daughter who could read and write Chinese translated the Chinese words as “Powerful Being”.
She thought the plate might belong to a powerful person in ancient time.
The palm tree plantation owner Wee Tapsaeng said he has now sought police help to stop gold prospecting in his property as they now caused extensive damages to his plantation which he could no longer tolerate.
He said he bought the plantation of a 7-rai plot from the previous owner to grow palm trees.
But when he started to use tractors to excavate the land, a lot of gold surfaced.
He then told friends and get the gold to goldsmiths for checking and was told they are pure gold.
He then allowed outsiders to dig for gold but just at limited area.
But now the digging was more than he could handle and acceptable because diggers have gone beyond the restricted areas and have destroyed a great deal of his property which was unacceptable.