On the Burmese border with Thailand, half way between Chiang Mai and Sukhothai to the South lies the Tak burial sites. All digging in this place is and always has been strictly illegal. This poses a great problem as far as obtaining any accurate information on the contents. A great deal of digging in the area has been done but almost entirely by hill tribes looking for things to sell for profit. We do have some information on the sites, but not nearly as much as we should.

At the Tak burial sites there are many fish designed plates, including very fine wares from Sri Satchanelai and Sukhothai. What is extremely interesting about the plates found there in the burial sites is the configuration in which they are most commonly found. Each burial site is generally arranged in a circle of approximately 10 meters in circumference, circumscribed by a shallow ditch to define the sacred area. Sometimes inside the circle, a menhir stone is found as a place marker. As for the actual individual graves, the ashes of the deceased are place in an urn which is bounded front and back by two plates each facing inward toward the urn. Frequently daggers or swords are found placed, either standing erect or lying, between the urn and one of the plates leaving rust marks where prolonged contact with the lip of the plate and the dagger has caused an iron transfer from the sword or dagger to the glaze of the plate.

Nobody knows to which people the burial sites belong. The Buddhist Mon and later Thai peoples didn't practice burial rituals such as this. The most anyone can guess is that they are sites of the original Lawa people who acquired their wealth through trade of forest products found so invaluable by the Chinese. The Lawa are the Celts of Southeast Asia, and very little is know about them. The Thai government's department of Archeology is uncooperative in the research of this area. [I suspect this may have to do with the legitimization of the current dynasty, and its claims to an authentic and unbroken reign in Thailand and the area.]