The Plain of Jars

In the mountains of northern Laos in the Xieng Khouang province, thousands of giant stone jars weighing several tons can be found scattered everywhere. The jars appear in clusters—ranging from a single jar to several hundred—on the lower foothills surrounding the central plain and upland valleys. There are an estimated 3000 jars scattered across 90 sites, each up to three m in height, hewn out of rock, sandstone, granite and limestone. Some jars are decorated with Bas-relief (a sculpture technique in which the carvings just barely protrude above the background). The Plain of Jars is believed to be 2000 years old, and is one of the most important archaeological sites in Southeast Asia.

The existence of lip rims on the jars suggest that they had once supported lids, and presumably used for storage. Speculation about their usage ranges from the obvious—storing and fermenting rice wine and collecting rain water during the monsoons—to the more bizarre, such as distillation of dead bodies. The discovery of human remains, burial goods and ceramics around the stone jars seems to indicate that these relics were associated with prehistoric burial practices.


The site was discovered during the 1930s by a French archaeologist, but war and politics prevented further excavation until 1994. During the Vietnam War, many of them were damaged by U.S. bombing, and even today, there are thousands of tons of unexploded ordnance in the vicinity—making excavation a slow and dangerous process.

From 1964 to 1973, US forces flew 580,944 bombing missions over Laos, dropping more than two million tons of munitions. On a per capita basis this makes Laos the most heavily bombed country on Earth, and Xieng Khouang province—where the Plain of Jars is—the second most-targeted area, with more than 63,000 sorties.