The Mok Khalan alignment in Southern Thailand and associated archaeological remains
H.H.E. Loofs published this concise field note in 1977, describing a stone alignment near Nakhon Si Thammarat in Southern Thailand that he visited in early 1968 during the Thai-British Archaeological Expedition. The article argues that while the alignment superficially resembles the megalithic rows known from Malacca and Negri Sembilan, its associated worked stones—particularly two decorated posts bearing a Khmer-style floral relief—point to a much later origin, no earlier than the thirteenth century, and suggest a complex process of religious transformation from Saivite Hinduism to Buddhism.
Summary
Loofs’s note addresses a significant gap in the megalithic record of the Malay Peninsula: prior to this publication, no stone alignments had been reported from Southern Thailand, despite the well-documented concentrations in Alor Gajah and Kuala Pilah some 700 kilometres to the south. The alignment at Wat Mok Khalan, situated in dense vegetation about sixteen kilometres north-northwest of Nakhon Si Thammarat, consists of thirty-six visible upright stones in a north-south orientation. Loofs documents the site’s physical characteristics in detail, including the removal of additional stones during the construction of a district school in 1960, and identifies a distinctive “shouldered” flat slab among the standing stones that differs in shape and workmanship from the rest.
The interpretive core of the article rests on the discovery of two decorated stones now serving as house-posts in a building within the monastery complex. Their relief—a pair of vertical rows of stylized leaves flanked by raised dots—bears a resemblance to the door-frame ornamentation of twelfth- and early thirteenth-century Khmer temples such as Banteay Samre and Preah Palilay. Loofs connects this stylistic evidence to the period of Khmer suzerainty over parts of the Malay Peninsula under Jayavarman VII, and to the presence of linga bases and other worked stones in the vicinity, which he interprets as remnants of a nearby Saivite temple. The Abbot of the monastery, Rev. Sanguan, offered the local explanation that the alignment represents a ritual border (sema) delimiting the sacred area of that temple.
Loofs then constructs a layered historical scenario: a Saivite temple of Khmer-influenced architecture was erected in the late twelfth or thirteenth century; at some later point, Buddhist inhabitants dismantled or repurposed its stones, re-erecting the undecorated ones as a ritual boundary in a process of “Buddhicization” analogous to the Christianization of Breton menhirs. He speculates that this transformation may be connected to the conquest of Nakhon Si Thammarat by the Buddhist Thai king Rama Khamhaeng toward the end of the thirteenth century, though he acknowledges the argument remains tentative. More broadly, he challenges the assumption that megalithic practices were extinguished by the arrival of Indian-derived religions, arguing instead for their long persistence and incorporation into new belief systems.
Key Findings
- The alignment comprises 36 visible upright stones (possibly 37) in a north-south orientation, with the northernmost and southernmost stones approximately 46 metres apart; additional stones were removed in 1960 for the construction of the Mok Khalan District School (p. 59).
- The stones are roughly hewn with a consistent 20–30 cm square or slightly rectangular cross-section; the tallest stands approximately 1.40 metres above ground (p. 59).
- A distinctive “shouldered” flat slab—about 80 cm high, nearly as wide, and 15 cm thick—stands among the alignment stones and differs in shape and workmanship from the others; a similar fragment was found under another monastery building (p. 59).
- Two decorated stones, now used as house-posts, bear a relief of two parallel vertical rows of stylized leaves separated by three plain bands and flanked by rows of raised dots, a pattern Loofs compares to the door-frames of twelfth- and early thirteenth-century Khmer temples (pp. 59–60).
- Two linga bases were found in the vicinity—one near the northern end of the alignment and another of limestone, about one metre long, further south in a thicket—indicating the presence of a Saivite cult site (p. 60).
- The site is located in Amphoe Tha Sala, approximately 16 km NNW of Nakhon Si Thammarat, adjacent to Wat Mok Khalan (probably a rendering of Mogghalarama or Mokkhaphatarama) (pp. 58–59).
Conclusion
Loofs concludes that the Mok Khalan alignment was almost certainly erected no earlier than the thirteenth century and quite conceivably much later, representing either a deliberate “Buddhicization” of a Saivite temple or a megalithic survival (or revival) that persisted within a Buddhist cultural framework. He emphasizes that megalithic practices cannot be confined to a pre-Hindu or pre-Islamic time slot and that such survivals likely exist elsewhere in Thailand and Southeast Asia without having been identified as such.
Context
- The article draws on direct field observation by the author in early 1968, supplemented by local oral testimony from the monastery abbot and the curator of the Nakhon Si Thammarat National Museum; no new archival or epigraphic sources are introduced.
- Historiographically, the note extends the megalithic survey of the Malay Peninsula initiated by Haji Mubin Sheppard (1962) and J. Chandran (1973) into Southern Thailand, and it contributes to the broader debate on the chronology and cultural attribution of megalithic monuments in the region by challenging the assumption that such features are necessarily pre-Hindu.