History fades as rising sea levels slowly destroy Thailand’s temple murals

Reverendender , 7 months ago

If only we could have seen this coming somehow

autotldr Bot , 7 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

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The murals offer a glimpse into a past era - a time of prosperity but also social upheaval, when a more empowered nobility had emerged, as did a desire, say historians, for Buddhism to play a more stronger role in reinforcing discipline in society.

Murals in temples across Thailand face the risks of flooding, pollution and poor planning but conservationists say the main danger is another, more existential threat: saltwater intrusion from rising sea levels sparked by the climate crisis.

Pictorial stories had long featured in temples, but it was in the last century of the Ayutthaya era that murals spread far more widely, according to the historian Chris Baker, and Wat Prasat is an early example of this trend – painted before the practice became much more standardised.

At the better-preserved Wat Chong Nonsi in Bangkok, which also dates from the late Ayutthaya era, uncensored, bawdy images of urban life are interspersed with the Vidhura jātaka story.

In one scene, a couple’s entangled legs emerge from a bedroom window, where neighbours have gathered to peer in; downstairs, a child giggles as his friend prepares to prank a man whose testicle has become exposed as he works.

The images at Wat Chong Nonsi are not a sneaky inclusion, but are portrayed in the middle of the temple wall, at eye level, says Baker, who described it as a form of humanism, and reflects a feeling that “life really is like this – there’s no sense in us not depicting this,” he says.

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