Head of a Buddha image

Interconnections: Cambodia and Thailand Eight Centuries Ago
It is often not easy to tell where Buddha images from Cambodia and Thailand in the 1100s through 1300s were made. The political situation was complex. Sometimes parts of central and northeastern Thailand were controlled by the great Cambodian kingdom of Angkor. At other times, regional kingdoms or principalities held power.
Cultural influences flowed in both directions between Cambodia and Thailand. Rapid religious change complicated the picture. The Hinduism, Mahayana Buddhism, and Vajrayana Buddhism of Angkor were more and more supplanted by schools of Theravada Buddhism from central and northern Thailand, Myanmar (Burma), and Sri Lanka.
The similarities and differences among these images reflect some of the complex and poorly understood trends of the period. The position of placing the right hand on the knee became overwhelmingly predominant for Buddha images from Thailand. So did the presence of a flame jetting from top of the Buddha’s head, a feature that seems to have been introduced from Sri Lanka.
In the ruined temples of the capital of the kingdom of Ayutthaya (1351–1767) are found many large seated Buddha images of stone. Sometimes these stone images are located in prominent positions in image halls, but often they line the square cloisters that enclose the temples.
These figures are often made up of a number of stone blocks. No doubt they were covered with a layer of stucco
to hide the joins between blocks and provide a smooth surface. The stucco itself would have been coated with lacquer (usually black), which would then have been gilded. Some stone fragments, such as this one, still have remnants of these coatings.
The image from which this head came would have been about five and a half feet tall, not including a base, which would probably have been from three to as many as five feet tall. This head has been installed high on the wall to give visitors the experience of looking up at it as the sculptor would have intended.