Gold treasure found buried in farmer's field

The Fine Arts Department will take control of the field where an ancient hoard of buried gold was found in Phattalung’s Khao Sonchai district last weekend, sparking a local, frenzied rush to dig up the treasure.

The gold cache was uncovered after the land owner hired a backhoe to prepare the ground to plant four-rai of oil palm trees.

After heavy rain last Saturday, the land owner and workers planting the trees came across a buried hoard of gold.

The news spread fast and a gold rush followed with hundreds of people from nearby villages and even nearby provinces provinces Meaning: on of many divisions of the government of a country into smaller parts Thai Translation: จังหวัด
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rushing to dig for a share of the treasure.

Many treasure hunters emerged with gold sheets engraved with figures, coins and ornaments of different sizes -- from one baht-weight of gold to almost a kilogramme apiece.

The treasure hunt continued until Wednesday night, and by then no one was finding any more gold, although the holes they dug were getting quite deep.

Wi Tubsaeng, the land owner, said he has asked villagers to leave the area and will put up a sign prohibiting people from digging in there. This would allow officials from the Fine Arts Department to work in the area.

Police had been asked earlier to prevent the digging but villagers outnumbered the police, so Mr Wi said he had to let them hunt for the gold.

Fine Arts Department director-general Anek Sihamart and officials from the department’s office in Nakhon Si Thammarat went to examine the site and some of the recovered gold.

They said the gold was real and the square sheets depicted the story of the Churning of the Milk Ocean, part of Hindu mythology, and were 700-800 years old.

Mr Anek said the gold treasure dug up from the ground was considered national property, so people who found it should hand it in to the department, which would pay one-third of the value, which was expected to be at least 10 times higher than the market price for gold.

Supakorn Chuayphom, 32, from a nearby village, said he found one gold sheet of about two baht-weight (about one ounce), which he sold for more than 40,000 baht.

Yok Phetcharta, 77, a villager in tambon Khok Muang of Khao Sonchai district, said her parents and some elderly people in her area said the spot where the gold was found was originally wetland forest.

She believed that the treasure belonged to Malaysian people who had planned to donate the gold to cover the top of a pagoda at Wat Phra Mahathat Woramahawihan in Nakhon Si Thammarat province.

Anat Bamrungwong, director of the Fine Arts office in Nakhon Si Thammarat, said the size and the thickness of the gold sheets match those used to cover the pagoda at Wat Phra Mahathat Woramahawihan, which also told a story about the construction of the pagoda in 1093.

However, some villagers thought the treasure hoard was left behind by Japanese soldiers who had set up camp in that area to supervise the construction of Phetkasem Road during World War II.