Another eight or so centuries later, the prang was re-discovered entangled in thick jungle by a monk-prince by the name of Mongkut. After ascending to the throne as King Rama IV in the mid 1800s, he ordered a new chedi to once again be built atop the old one. Considering the grand scale of the project, the devoutly Buddhist king — he had been a monk for 27 years prior — seems to have fully understood the site’s significance.
Completed in 1870 and covered by a shell of orange-gold ceramic tiles from China, the structure that you see today reaches a height of 127 metres from base to tip. The king ordered that a new village be formed to oversee upkeep of the chedi and create a revitalised Buddhist centre. It was in this way that the modern town and province of Nakhon Pathom came to be.