Plain of Jars Site two

Plain of Jars Site two

The bulk of the jars are found on the three major deposits Site 1, 2, 3. Site 1 alone has over 250 of these large stone jars. The stone jars were rediscovered by the French archaeologist Madeleine Colani around 1930 at Ban Ang. Archaeologists believe the vessels to be funerary urns from a megalithic culture.
Researchers suspect a connection to the indigenous, Austroasiatic-speaking peoples in Laos, such as the Khmu.

In 2019, the area was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. UNESCO justifies this with the exceptional testimony that the jars gave to the civilization in this area and as an example also to the production, transport and use of such jars in Southeast Asia between 500 BC and 500 AD.

Since the Xieng Khouang Province was heavily bombed by the American Air Force during the Laotian Civil War in the 1960s and 1970s, many of the deposits are still inaccessible today. Only at sites 1, 2 and 3 were most of the bombs cleared.