Head of an image of the Hindu deity Shiva

This head can be recognized as Shiva by the third eye in its forehead and the crescent moon and symbol associated with Shiva on the upper part of the headdress. Although the kings and the people of the Thai kingdoms were Buddhists, Hindu deities and their lore continued to be familiar. Images of Hindu deities seem to have been used in royal ceremonies carried out by court brahmans (priests).
A number of such images survive. Most of them have traditionally been thought to have been made in the kingdom of Sukhothai (mid-1200s–1438) in north-central Thailand. Their dating has been controversial, however, and it is far from certain where most of them were made.
Helping to date this head is a crowned Buddha image from the Sukhothai area (kept in a museum in Thailand) that has an inscribed date equivalent to 1541. Both its facial features and its crown are similar to those of this head, making a similar date seem appropriate. Thermoluminescence testing has yielded a probable age for this object of 350 to 600 years.