For more than a century, a bronze Garuda discovered in the ancient city of Si Mahosot has been away from Prachinburi. This September, the mythical creature finally comes home — and its return offers a compelling reason to explore one of eastern Thailand’s less-travelled corners.
From September 18 to 20, Prachinburi National Museum will stay open until 9pm for the fourth edition of “PRACHINBURI Night at the Museum”, turning an otherwise quiet provincial museum into the starting point for a journey through archaeology, mythology and more than a thousand years of history.
The star of the weekend is small enough to fit inside a museum display, but carries an extraordinary story.
The bronze Garuda, executed in Lopburi style, was discovered in 1912 near the ancient city of Si Mahosot. According to the museum’s account, a local man named Ta-sun Phanit unearthed it while digging soil for his garden near a large pond beside a Christian church at Ban Khok Wat, beyond the ancient city’s western moat.
He later gave the object to Father Perou, a Catholic priest. When King Vajiravudh (Rama VI) visited Prachinburi, the priest presented the Garuda to the king.
The sculpture was thought to have once crowned a military standard. King Rama VI had it restored and mounted on the staff of the Maha Phaichayon Thawat flag, with strands of the king’s hair enshrined inside the top of the flagstaff.
Now, more than a century later, the Garuda is returning to the province where it was found. It will be unveiled during the festival before joining the permanent collection of Prachinburi National Museum.
Its homecoming also serves as a reminder that Prachinburi’s story stretches far beyond its modern provincial capital.
Gods after dark
Museums tend to belong to daylight: quiet galleries, glass cases and neatly printed labels. Night at the Museum loosens that atmosphere.
During the festival, the museum becomes part exhibition space, part cultural gathering. Visitors can pass through a symbolic “Gateway of Time”, explore displays connected with Dvaravati heritage and join evening tours retracing the early history of Prachinburi and eastern Thailand.
The programme also follows the Garuda beyond archaeology and into mythology, tracing the celestial creature in stories that move between heaven and the underworld.
But Garuda is not the only Hindu deity commanding attention.
This year’s festival incorporates Ganesh Chaturthi, the celebration of Ganesha, the elephant-headed god associated with wisdom and the removal of obstacles. Inside the museum is an ancient Ganesha image more than 1,400 years old, described as the oldest known example in Thailand.
On September 19, local students add movement and music to the evening with khon, Thailand’s classical masked dance-drama, and a special dance offering dedicated to Ganesha.
Five objects, many worlds
Ganesha and the returning Garuda may command much of the attention, but they are only part of the story. Five standout artefacts at Prachinburi National Museum offer a compact journey through the cultures that once converged in eastern Thailand.
Among them is a four-armed Ganesha from Si Mahosot, one of the museum’s signature Hindu sculptures. A four-armed Vishnu similarly points towards religious and cultural ideas that travelled from India and took root across Southeast Asia.
Buddhism is represented by a seated Buddha from Si Mahosot, among the oldest Buddhist images discovered in the ancient city. The sculpture belongs to a world in which religious ideas and artistic styles circulated across the region, connecting communities associated with Dvaravati culture with lands farther east.
Centuries later, the region came increasingly within the orbit of the Khmer world. A bronze ritual object bearing an inscription associated with King Jayavarman VII offers evidence of that influence reaching into the Bang Pakong basin, while a sandstone lintel from Prasat Khao Lon in neighbouring Sa Kaeo demonstrates the architectural artistry that accompanied it.
Seen together, the five objects make the museum more than a collection of beautiful antiquities. They reveal ancient Prachinburi as a place connected to a much wider world — a crossroads where Indian religious ideas, Buddhist traditions and Khmer culture arrived, overlapped and acquired distinctly local forms.
And they make a useful introduction to what lies outside the museum walls.
Into the world of Si Mahosot
About 20 kilometres away lies Si Mahosot, an ancient settlement whose archaeological remains provide glimpses into the cultures that flourished in this part of Thailand centuries ago.
During the festival weekend, visitors can follow archaeologists into that landscape on a free afternoon excursion aboard the Prachinburi City Bus. Departing from the museum at 1pm on Saturday and Sunday, the trip traces the area’s Dvaravati heritage, stopping at the old Phumi Phubet wooden house before continuing to Si Mahosot, including Sa Kaeo and an ancient Buddha footprint
Having an archaeologist along changes the experience. What might otherwise appear to be ponds, stones and scattered ruins become evidence of an old urban world.
And after seeing the Ganesha, Buddha and other objects in the museum, the landscape begins to look different too. The archaeological sites are no longer isolated ruins; they become pieces of the same story.
By late afternoon, the bus circles back to Prachinburi, just as the museum begins to take on a different character under the evening lights.
Beyond the glass cases
Not everything requires an archaeology degree.
Outside the galleries, an Art Toys Market brings contemporary artists and makers into the mix, with art toys, crafts and DIY work on offer alongside demonstrations and stalls selling local food.
It makes for an unusual collision of worlds: ancient gods and contemporary collectibles, archaeological ruins and street food, museum labels and live performance.
Perhaps that is the pleasure of visiting Prachinburi during this particular weekend.
Rather than seeing antiquities as beautiful objects removed from their surroundings, travellers can move between the museum and the landscape that produced them. They can spend the afternoon following traces of Si Mahosot, then return after sunset to encounter Ganesha and the newly returned Garuda beneath museum lights.
For more than a century, the bronze Garuda lived away from the soil where it was discovered. This September, it completes a journey that began almost accidentally in a garden in 1912.
Sometimes an old object coming home is enough to make us look at an old place with new eyes.
If you go
PRACHINBURI Night at the Museum runs from September 18–20, 2026, from 10am to 9pm, at Prachinburi National Museum in Mueang Prachinburi. Admission is free on September 19, Thai Museum Day, from 9am to 8.30pm.
The free Si Mahosot archaeological excursion departs from the museum at 1pm on Saturday and Sunday, with one trip per day.
Photo Credits: National Museum Prachinburi
