Lopburi's Phra Prang Sam Yot, Wat Phra Si Rattana Mahathat and King Narai's palace museum

The short answer

Three of Lopburi's monuments come from different periods and are described by different bodies. Phra Prang Sam Yot is a Khmer shrine of three linked laterite towers, dated by its style to the late 12th or early 13th century.[1] Wat Phra Si Rattana Mahathat is a separate monument whose main prang is dated by style to about the mid-13th century and is treated as a model for the prangs of early Ayutthaya.[2] King Narai's palace, built in 1666, is now Somdet Phra Narai National Museum, run by the Fine Arts Department.[3]

All three are in Tha Hin subdistrict of Mueang Lopburi district.[4][2][1] Lopburi is not an XTOUR destination, and XTOUR gives no travel time to it. Quotations from Thai-language pages below are XTOUR's translations.

Phra Prang Sam Yot: three towers, three images

The Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre, a public organisation under the Ministry of Culture, keeps an academic record of the shrine in its Arts in Southeast Asia database. It says the date of construction is not known, but the laterite structure and its stucco match Khmer temples in Thailand of Jayavarman VII's reign, in the late 12th and early 13th century. The three towers stand in a row on a north-south axis and face east, the central one the tallest; each once held a statue on a base that is now empty.[1]

Which images stood in the towers is a scholar's suggestion, not a record. The centre's entry cites Professor M.C. Subhadradis Diskul: a Buddha sheltered by the naga in the centre, Avalokitesvara to the south and Prajnaparamita to the north, a Mahayana Buddhist grouping.[1] The Fine Arts Department's Mueang Sing pages add a wider context: they read the Preah Khan inscription of Jayavarman VII as naming Lavodayapura, that is Lavo or Lopburi, among the places where his Jayabuddhamahanatha image was installed.[9] Those pages do not say that image stood at Prang Sam Yot, and XTOUR does not either.

The shrine was changed later. Under King Narai of Ayutthaya it was rebuilt with a brick vihara added in front, and the centre's record says this vihara houses a seated Buddha image. It records a full restoration from 1993, after the towers had cracked and the ground had subsided slightly under heavy traffic around the complex.[1]

Wat Phra Si Rattana Mahathat: a model for Ayutthaya's prangs

This is a different monument from Prang Sam Yot, and not the temple of the same name in Phitsanulok or at Chaliang. The anthropology centre's record says nothing documents its construction, so it is dated by style: its prang is closer to Khmer temples than to the early Ayutthaya type, which places it about a century before Ayutthaya was founded. The main prang was once flanked by two smaller prangs to the north and south, which have been destroyed.[2]

Its importance is what came after. The record calls it a probable prototype for early Ayutthaya prangs and says the main prang of Wat Chulamani in Phitsanulok, built for King Borommatrailokkanat, was modelled on it. King Narai restored it too.[2]

The Fine Arts Department's 4th Regional Office in Lopburi has shown groups round the site: in February 2023 it received a school party at the monument, guided by one of its assistant archaeologists.[6] The office covers Lopburi Province.[5] XTOUR has not found an official page that names the body managing either Wat Phra Si Rattana Mahathat or Prang Sam Yot as a visitor site, and does not state one.

Somdet Phra Narai National Museum and the palace

The museum's own history page tells the story. King Narai of Ayutthaya, who reigned from 1656 to 1688, had the palace built in Lopburi in 1666, designed and built by French and Italian craftsmen on 41 rai, and stayed there eight or nine months a year, which made Lopburi a second capital after Ayutthaya.[3] After his death in 1688 the town declined. The palace was restored under Rama IV, who added new buildings and gave it the name Phra Narai Ratchaniwet, and in 1924 Prince Damrong set up a museum there, which the page calls the third national museum in Thailand.[3]

The page divides the exhibitions among three groups of buildings.[3]

• Phra Thinang Chanthara Phisan, King Narai's audience hall, holds a permanent exhibition on his reign.
• Phra Thinang Phiman Mongkut, a three-storey building from Rama IV's reign, follows Lopburi from prehistory, about 3,500 years ago, through Dvaravati and the Khmer-influenced art of the 16th to 18th Buddhist centuries, including lintels and Naga-protected Buddha images, to the Ayutthaya and Rattanakosin periods. Its third floor shows Rama IV's bedroom as it was.
• The Phra Prathiap buildings, built at the same time for the ladies and attendants of the inner court, hold permanent exhibitions; one of them was remade for Thai Museum Day in 2012 as an exhibition on Lopburi folk life.

The museum gives its address as Sorasak Road, Tha Hin, Mueang Lopburi.[4] It sits under the 4th Regional Office of Fine Arts.[5]

How the three differ

Nearby, and what "nearby" means here

The 4th Regional Office's register describes a fourth monument, Prang Khaek, as standing between Phra Narai Ratchaniwet and Ban Luang Rap Ratchathut, "not far from Prang Sam Yot". It was originally a Brahmanical shrine of three brick prangs, which the office dates to about the 15th Buddhist century, and it names the Fine Arts Department as its custodian.[8] That is the office's description of where the monuments sit relative to each other. XTOUR does not give walking times or suggest an order of visit.

For organised activities, an undated notice from the office asks anyone who wants to use a monument area to apply in writing at least 30 working days ahead, giving the activity, purpose, layout and duration.[7]

A date to treat with care

The anthropology centre records Prang Sam Yot's registration as an ancient monument in the Government Gazette no. 53, part 34, on 27 September 1935.[1] The Fine Arts Department's Phimai page cites the same volume, part and day for Phimai's registration, as B.E. 2479, which is 1936.[10] XTOUR's reading is that the centre's year may be a conversion slip, but no page XTOUR read settles it, so XTOUR gives no year of its own. The centre gives 2 August 1936, in part 24 of the same volume, for Wat Phra Si Rattana Mahathat, and the Fine Arts Department gives that date and part for Prang Khaek.[8][2]

XTOUR has not found an official page that says whether Prang Sam Yot or Wat Phra Si Rattana Mahathat is in active worship, so it states no conduct or dress rule for either.

What XTOUR does not tell you

XTOUR does not publish opening hours, fees, ticket arrangements, accessibility or travel times for any of these places. XTOUR found no official page on Lopburi's monkeys in what it read, and makes no claim about them or about safety.

For the Ayutthaya kingdom that King Narai ruled from, see the Ayutthaya Historical Park guide; for other Khmer-period sites, Phimai or Phanom Rung and Mueang Sing Historical Park. The Thailand country page lists XTOUR's coverage.