Regarded by many as the single most important document in Thai history, this object is not without controversy. The pillar features inscriptions which have traditionally been regarded as the earliest example of the Thai script. Discovered in 1833 by King Mongkut (Rama IV), it was eventually deciphered and dated to 1292. The text gives, among other things, a description of the Sukothai Kingdom and had immense influence over the development of Thai historical thinking from the early 1900s, which came to regard Sukhothai as the first Thai kingdom.

From the late 1980s to the 1990s, assertions that the stele was a forgery led to intense scholarly debate. This hasn’t been definitively settled, but electron microscopy has suggested that the object is likely to be as old as originally claimed. The majority of academics today regard it as at least ‘partly authentic’.

The object was inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in 2003.