Learn the History of Tambralinga at the National Museum

Nakhon Si Thammarat probably has one of the most interesting and rich histories out of all the provinces in Southern Thailand and there is no better place to learn it than at the National Museum of Nakhon Si Thammarat. This museum is dedicated to telling the story of Nakhon Si Thammarat and all its precursor kingdoms and cities that dated way back even before the time of Sukhothai and Ayutthaya in the 12th - 13th Century.

The history of Nakhon Si Thammarat dated all the way back to 38,000 years when they excavated archeological remains in a cave in the area signifying that life has flourished here since the historic time. In the first and the beginning of the second millennium, the place was mentioned in several chronicles from places like China and Chaiya (a city in Surat Thani that was part of the Srivijaya Kingdom) with the name varying between Danmaling (the Thai also called this period Ta-Por-Ling) and Tambralinga respectively. It is said that Tambralinga is an Indianised kingdom that thrived during the 11th - 13th Century and they have been both a vassal state of bigger kingdoms like Srivijaya and independent before it became under the control of the Siam kingdom of Sukhothai and Ayutthaya in the 13th Century.