Funerary Offering Jar, 1000-500 BCE, Thailand. Slip coated earthenware with burnished surface, 32.1 x 38.74 cm. Minneapolis Institute of Art, The Helen Jones Fund for Asian Art, 2000.82.2.

In the late 1960s, a hoard of pots was unearthed at the village of Ban Chiang, on the Khorat Plateau in northeast Thailand. It yielded a complex, innovative ceramic tradition that transformed scholars’ understanding of early Southeast Asian history. Although much remains unknown about the Ban Chiang culture (c. 3000 BCE–400 CE), archaeology has revealed that it cultivated advanced traditions of metallurgy, agriculture, burial practices, and art.

An excavation at Ban Lum Khao in 1995–96 uncovered over 100 burial tombs, where trumpet-rimmed vessels, fashioned from black clay and finished with a red slip (a mixture of clay and water, used to protect and decorate the ceramic), were found placed near the head and feet of the deceased. These elegant vessels likely held grave offerings to ensure the ancestor a rich afterlife.