Ayutthaya was the capital of the Siamese kingdom from its founding in 1350 until 1767, when a Burmese army sacked and burned the city, ending the kingdom; UNESCO inscribed the Historical Park in 1991 as the heart of that urban and ceremonial landscape. Within the park, Wat Phra Si Sanphet served as the royal temple adjacent to the palace, Wat Mahathat held the kingdom's most central relic shrine, and Wat Chaiwatthanaram, built in 1630 under King Prasat Thong in Khmer-influenced style with its central prang evoking Mount Meru, stands on the river's outside bend. Wat Mahathat's image of a stone Buddha head held in the roots of a banyan tree is one of the park's most recognizable sights.

The headless Buddhas and toppled chedis are the legacy of the 1767 sack and subsequent disturbance, not the builders' design, and the park reads differently depending on which layer you stand in: royal ceremonial architecture of a destroyed capital, working Buddhist shrines where worship continues, and a modern heritage park with ticketed precincts. Restoration has been ongoing since the 2011 floods, which damaged Wat Chaiwatthanaram and prompted a multi-year conservation program supported internationally.

Visiting

Fine Arts Department, Ayutthaya Historical Park. Open daily 8:00 am to 6:00 pm. Rates per the Fine Arts Department: Thai nationals 10 baht per temple or a 40 baht flat rate; foreign visitors 80 baht per temple or a 300 baht flat rate. Ticketed precincts include Wat Phra Si Sanphet, Wat Mahathat, and Wat Chaiwatthanaram; some outlying temples are free.

Photo: Vyacheslav Argenberg, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wat_Chaiwatthanaram_2,_Ayutthaya,_Thailand.jpg))

Associated traditions & practices

Sacred Site Pilgrimage