Pictures of Stone Jars at Jar Site 16 Plain of Jars - HoboMaps.com - Go Back to Plain of Jars Info Page - - Home

All pictures on this web page were taken October 2012 at Jar Site 16 Ban Phai near Muang Khoun the old Phuan capital.

All of the jars except one big sandstone jar are said to be of granite composition which is unusual.

Click HERE to see a map of how to get to Site 16 from Muang Khoun town area.

The pictures with a tape measure shown indicate the size of the jars - each black number on the tape is one-tenth of a meter and each red number is one meter.

The tallest jar at the site is about 2 meters high but most are about 1 meter high and less than one meter wide.

The wood stick shown in a few of the lower pictures is meant to show the inside depth of the jars and has a number 1 marked on it to show one meter length.

Precise measuring is not possible because most jars are partly underground and the inside bottoms usually have mud or other material restricting measurement.

In general these granite jars are a bit smaller than the jars at Jar Sites 1, 2 & 3 and in worse condition even though their granite composition is supposed to be harder than that of the mostly sandstone jars at these other sites.

As of 2012, no quarry has been found as a source of material for these jars but the mountains south of Site 16 have granite rocks in them which are easily seen in the excavated cutbanks beside Highway 1D going south from Muang Khoun town towards Paksan.

Maybe the boulders these jars were carved from were brought to the site by a glacial flow long ago and the jars were not transported there from a quarry.