Ceramics in Mainland Southeast Asia

Phan kilns

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The Phan kilns are located in Chiang Rai province near the district town of Phan. Like the Wang Nua kilns, they appear to have specialized almost exclusively in celadon-glazed wares. The glaze is pale in color and smooth and even in application over a light-colored body.

Sayan Prishanchit suggests that the activity of the Phan kilns may have lasted no more than fifty years, probably centering on the second half of the fifteenth century (or the late fifteenth to the early sixteenth century). He mentions the hypothesis that potters from the Sawankhalok kilns were taken north by Prince Yuthisathira of Chaliang (Si Satchanalai) when he moved to Lan Na in 1451 (Sayan 1999, 166).

Don Hein observes that the above-ground brick-built kilns in the Phan complex suggest that a technology transfer took place during the LASW period of activity (Late Stoneware, fifteenth-sixteenth century) at the Sawankhalok kilns. He sees similarities in the wares of the two complexes as well (Hein 2001, 249).