BANGKOK — Visiting the royal residence of King Taksin the Great would remind Thais of many unsettled questions from the bloody history.
BANGKOK — Visiting the royal residence of King Taksin the Great would remind Thais of many unsettled questions from the bloody history.
The building, commonly known as the Old Palace, was the power center of the brief Thonburi Kingdom (1767–1782) before the capital moved to the current side of the Chao Phraya River. The palace is open to the public until Dec. 28. But a closer inspection of its history reveals several questions that have yet to be fully explained.
First, how does King Taksin look like? Despite many depictions of him in textbooks and monuments, there was no contemporary image of the king, who lived from 1734 to 1782.
Second, was the Old Palace ever a palace at all?
