“Maritime Asia Heritage” Exhibition: Decoding Civilizational Networks Across the Ocean
Silpakorn University and Kyoto University unveil the "Maritime Asia Heritage" exhibition, tracing cross-oceanic civilizational networks, revealing the sea as a space that connected peoples, cultures, and religions long before the age of nation-states, while presenting new databases from field surveys across three countries.
Silpakorn University, in collaboration with Kyoto University, has inaugurated the exhibition Heritage Documentation and Historical Interpretation: New Findings from Maritime Asia, under the Maritime Asia Heritage Survey (MAHS) project. The exhibition is hosted at the Phra Phrom Phijit Art Gallery, Faculty of Architecture, Silpakorn University (Wang Tha Phra Campus), running from 9 to 18 April 2026. It presents findings from field studies and historical interpretations conducted through modern technology, the culmination of the Maritime Asia Heritage Survey (MAHS), a project dedicated to the field survey and digital documentation of ocean-connected cultural heritage sites.
The MAHS is based at Kyoto University's Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS) and is supported by the Arcadia Fund. The project conducts primary field survey work in the Maldives, Indonesia, and Thailand, creating and expanding an open-access digital repository of multimedia heritage records enhanced with customized web-based resources. The resulting databases will be transferred to the respective source countries and preserved for in-depth research and further development at Kyoto University, the University of Oxford, and Silpakorn University.
The MAHS builds upon the Maldives Heritage Survey pilot project, which was based at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies from 2017 to 2020, before being launched in 2020 at Kyoto University's Center for Southeast Asian Studies. To document endangered heritage, MAHS field teams employ digital technologies including GPS/RTK mapping, digital photography, video, CAD drawings, IIIF-standard manuscript digitizations, as well as aerial and terrestrial LiDAR, to produce robust records for the benefit of historians, local communities, and heritage management professionals. All records and digital heritage assets produced by the MAHS are made openly available online and permanently archived in the digital repositories of Kyoto University and the Bodleian Library's Oxford Research Archive.
Professor Dr. Thanaseth Ngaohiranpat, President of Silpakorn University, stated that the exhibition represents a concrete outcome of years of dedicated collaboration between faculty, researchers, and students of Silpakorn University and researchers and surveyors from the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Kyoto University, who conducted fieldwork in the Maldives, Indonesia, and Thailand. The Thai component was made possible through a Memorandum of Understanding signed between the two institutions.
"Years of intensive fieldwork reflect a network of genuine intellectual commitment, dedicated to the study and documentation of Asia's maritime heritage, which faces considerable challenges today. By integrating knowledge and technology to build a cultural heritage database of regional significance, the project is especially timely as the world confronts climate change, rising sea levels, and development pressures threatening archaeological sites. The project also strengthens the capacity of Thai researchers and opens opportunities to survey important areas that have never been systematically studied, particularly the lower southern region, home to a rich and complex cultural landscape, while advancing knowledge to an international level," the President stated.
"This project therefore serves as a vital knowledge base for humanity, providing the foundations needed to address challenges posed by environmental degradation, heritage-unaware development, and other ever-present threats. By safeguarding the cultural evidence of human civilization, it creates a record for all of humanity to preserve cultural heritage at risk in the modern world. This collaboration enables Thailand to develop knowledge and technology, leading to the systematic and long-term conservation of globally significant sites," he added.
Professor R. Michael Feener, PI and Director of the Maritime Asia Heritage Survey, is Professor of Cross-Regional Studies at the Kyoto University Center for Southeast Asian Studies, and is also currently a Senior Associate of the Melbourne Law School's Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society, and an Associate Member of the History Faculty at the University of Oxford.
Professor Feener noted that the MAHS is a large-scale research collaboration operating across three countries, the Maldives, Indonesia, and Thailand, employing an interdisciplinary approach that integrates advanced technology with archaeological field surveys to build an open-access database on cultural heritage across Maritime Asia. In Thailand, the MAHS works in partnership with the Faculty of Architecture at Silpakorn University, with field teams employing a combination of cutting-edge technologies and traditional survey work to produce records for an open-access online database of the diverse and distinctive cultures and histories of the region, and to securely archive that information for future generations.
"What we are doing is not merely data collection, it is the creation of new methods for understanding the past, through the fusion of modern technology and on-the-ground fieldwork. The project began in the Maldives before expanding to other countries, including Thailand, where Associate Professor Dr. Kreangkrai Kirdsiri of the Faculty of Architecture, Silpakorn University, has led long-term field surveys over three years across sites physically and culturally connected to the ocean, tracing the movement of peoples who carried with them cultures and economies tied to oceanic trade networks, settling along coastlines and extending connections into mainland Southeast Asia," Professor Feener said.
Professor Feener further noted that the findings reveal how, prior to the formation of modern nation-states, Maritime Asia was intricately interconnected across dimensions of trade, religion, and culture. A significant transition was identified from medieval maritime trade networks driven by Buddhist merchants to networks increasingly shaped by Islamic influence in the early modern period. Evidence of cross-regional connections was also found, for instance, Dvaravati-period Buddhist art in Nakhon Pathom bearing striking similarities to artifacts from the Maldives, suggesting cultural ties spanning more than a millennium.
Another key finding concerns cultural fluidity in Thailand's three southernmost border provinces, where surveys revealed that historical communities blended multiple ethnic groups, Thai Buddhists, Chinese, and Malay Muslims, producing a cultural landscape that was constantly evolving rather than fixed or static.
"What we see is that culture is dynamic, it blends and leaves traces in art, language, and ways of life, proving that the sea is not a boundary between peoples but a space of civilizational connection. Maritime Asia was profoundly interconnected long before the age of nation-states. Culture never stood still; it flowed and fused continuously. And documenting it today means preserving the world's heritage for the future. In terms of fieldwork process, the surveys were highly challenging, teams worked in remote areas without electricity or internet, sometimes traveling by small boats, sleeping in forests, caves, or temporary shelters, equipped with survival gear including water filtration systems and first-aid kits. At the same time, technologies such as LiDAR and photogrammetry were deployed to detect ancient sites concealed beneath dense forest cover, revealing evidence that had never previously been recorded," Professor Feener emphasized.
Associate Professor Dr. Kreangkrai Kirdsiri, Deputy Dean for Planning, Research, Special Affairs and Quality Assurance at the Faculty of Architecture, and Dr. Isarachai Buranaut, Deputy Dean for Academic Afaais, Faculty of Decorative Arts, Silpakorn University, both are the country representative and researcher on the project, recounted how the collaboration came about: three years ago, he took the initiative to write to Professor Feener expressing interest in joining the network and invited him to expand the project to Thailand, a country that had not originally been part of the plan. Upon visiting Thailand and conducting field surveys across sites in both the Central and Southern regions, the project's Principal Investigator recognized the significant research potential and the urgent need to document Thailand's cultural heritage, particularly its vernacular cultural heritage and architecture, and decided to formally include Thailand as part of this global research network.
As part of this collaboration, master's and doctoral students from the Faculty of Architecture were recruited as field researchers for the project, gaining deep expertise through engagement with a world-class initiative and representing a meaningful contribution to national human resource development. CSEAS is also home to a Digital Heritage Documentation Lab set up by Professor Feener to facilitate the work of the MAHS. Kyoto University has brought cutting-edge technology survey equipment, including 3D Laser Scanners, Drones, and LiDAR technology, for use in the research, with knowledge transfer and equipment to be handed over for continued use in the International Programme in Architectural Heritage Management, Creative Industries and Tourism, which houses the Excellence Centre for Integrated Research of World Heritage, Creative City and Historic Urban Landscape in Southeast Asia (IWCH) at Silpakorn University, for ongoing teaching, research, and future collaborative projects.
This survey project therefore delivers value not only to society and the international community by safeguarding vital knowledge of human civilization from the manifold challenges of the present, with the aspiration that such knowledge will be further studied and applied across multiple dimensions. At the same time, it develops national human capital through international collaborative research, advances cutting-edge technology in education and research, and creates a global collaboration platform linking leading scholars, experts, researchers, students, and local communities, all united in the shared mission to sustainably preserve the value, significance, and knowledge of cultural heritage for generations to come.
ข่าวภาษาไทย / Thai Version
https://www.bangkoklifenews.com/17486071/20260413mahs-th
ข่าวภาษาญี่ปุ่น / 日本語版ニュース
https://www.bangkoklifenews.com/17486167/20260413mahs-jp
