PAINTED CLIFFS, DIVERGENT HERITAGE-MAKING: A CULTURAL LANDSCAPE COMPARISON OF HUASHAN (CHINA) AND PHA TAEM (THAILAND) ROCK ART

บทคัดย่อ

This research aimed to compare the Zuojiang Huashan rock art of Guangxi, China, and the Pha Taem rock art of Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand, in terms of (1) motif systems and painting techniques, (2) the “cliff-by-the-river” landscape grammar, and (3) the processes through which each has become a heritage resource and the positions assigned to local communities. The study employed a qualitative documentary research design guided by cultural landscape theory and the concept of authorized heritage discourse (AHD). Sixteen documents that directly describe or compare the two sites were selected through explicit inclusion criteria, coded with a deductive coding frame derived from the three objectives, and compared in a cross-case matrix. The two sites share a red-ochre medium and river-cliff setting but differ markedly. Huashan’s imagery is organised around hierarchical scenes of frontal crouching figures and bronze drums, fixed by a lime-and-blood binder, whereas Pha Taem’s documented imagery consists of riverine fauna such as catfish and elephants together with human figures. Huashan forms an expansive ceremonial landscape along the Zuojiang and Mingjiang rivers, while Pha Taem is a single frontier cliff above the Mekong. Huashan has been consolidated within a World Heritage and state-led AHD, whereas documentation of Pha Taem shows a national-park and tourism framework in which a UNESCO Global Geopark bid for the Ubon Ratchathani area follows a geological rather than a cultural pathway. The study contributes a “shared medium, divergent regimes” model, which shows that formal similarity between rock-art sites does not predict similarity in how they are made into heritage.