http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20150810-laos-strange-plain-of-jars

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The few travellersthat make it to this remote corner of Laos will find fields of ancient stonejars. Who put them there, and what were they for?

·        By Jarryd Salem

7 September 2015

Clouds of dustmushroomed behind me as my motorbike bounced along a potholed track outsidePhonsavan, a mid-sized town 400km northeast of the Lao capital, Vientiane.

The surroundingmountains forced the road into a series of meandering hairpins before therugged peaks finally dropped down into sprawling fields. As I overtook a localman herding his buffalo, he pointed a weathered finger in the direction I wasriding, confirming that I was headed the right way. I eased off the throttleand pulled over. I was clearly close to the Plain of Jars, Laos’ most impressive megalithic attraction– but the area was completely devoid of tourists.

Compared to its SouthEast Asian neighbours, Thailand and Vietnam, Laos often feels overlooked.Despite such gems as the Unesco-listed northern city of Luang Prabang, manyvisitors end up surrounded by the raucous revelry of Vang Vieng, a much-lovedparty stop where backpackers float down the Nam Song River in rubber tubes. ButI was not looking for a party: I was in search of a 2,500-year-old mystery thathas never been solved.

Unknown to mosttravellers, thousands of stone urns dating back to the Iron Age are pepperedover hundreds of square kilometres in the mountains surrounding Phonsavan – alengthy detour from the typical transportation routes. Scattered in seeminglyrandom locations, some reach enormous dimensions – up to 3m tall and 1m wide – and weigh well more than a few metrictonnes. Human bones, stone lids and discs have also been found in the area.

What purpose thesestone jars served and who constructed them remains a mystery. Due to their sizeand the nearby bones, some archaeologists think the urns were prehistoricburial sites for an ancient civilisation that travelled along a forgottenoverland trade route between the Mekong River and the Gulf of Tonkin.

Others believe theurns were used as distilling vessels during the early stages of funeral rites.A body would be placed inside and left to decompose before being moved to acrematorium or secondary storage location. After the corpse had fully decayed,the remains would be returned to the urn and another fresh body would join it,repeating the cycle.

This belief issupported by the traditional Southeast Asian mortuary practices used formembers of royalty. Thai royals, for example, historically had their bodiescremated many months after death, with their remains being moved from urn tourn until the final day of incineration, in the belief that the soul movesthrough a gradual transformation, exiting the earth and entering the spiritualworld. Additionally, the rims on each jar are thought to have supported lidsthat would be placed on top until the body decomposed, adding credit to thistheory.

Locals, on the otherhand, have more exciting philosophies. Some say the stone vessels were createdto brew potent rice wine to celebrate the victory of a band of mythical giantsover their enemies; others say the jars held whisky for a thirsty giant wholived in the mountains above Phonsavan. But the truth is, no one knows thesecret behind this ancient mystery.

Most of the vast areacontaining the jars is off-limits to the public; of the 60 sites, tourists canvisit only seven. Site 1, with more than 300 jars and a natural limestone cave,offers the most insight into the mystery.

In the early 1930s,French geologist and amateur archaeologist Madeline Colani theorized that thecave was used as a crematorium, producing the ashes that were afterwards placedinside the burial jars. Her idea tied in with the ancient funeral rites, andwould offer an explanation for where the bodies were moved after distillation.Evidence from inside the cave, including fragments of human bones, teeth andglass beads, supported this theory.

But locals disputethis idea, believing instead that the cave served as a large kiln. The jars weremoulded from natural materials such as animal skin, dung, clay, sugar and sand,and then baked.

Walking through thefields, I spotted dozens of red and white markers placed carefully on theground – signs of a far more disturbing secret amid the mystery. Phonsavan waslocated on a flight path for US fighter jets during the Vietnam War and becamethe unofficial dumping ground for 270 million cluster bombs,making it the world’s most heavily bombed place per capita. Around 80 millionof these bombs failed to detonate upon landing, dangerously contaminating thearea and making much of the land surrounding the Plain of Jars unusable.Visitors to the site must stay close to the marked, cleared zones.

The Mines AdvisoryGroup (MAG), anon-governmental organisation, said more than 50,000 Laotians have been killed or injured by unexploded bombs since 1964. Despite working since 1994 to clear theland, it will take almost a century at the current work rate to rid Laos of thedanger. TheMAG Visitors Centre on Phonsavan’s main street offers a detailed and heart-breaking look intothe problems history left behind.

Looking around,damage from the bombings was evident everywhere, with pockmarks in the earthand many of the stone vessels cracked, broken or destroyed. Placing my hands onthe edge of a jar, only metres from an area that potentially hid anothercluster bomb, I peeked inside the immense urn. Any answers to the mystery werelong gone; only spider webs and stagnant water remained. Time and war may haveremoved any chance we have of understanding who built these marvels and why.And with no other tourists anywhere to be seen, this was a mystery I ponderedon my own.

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