Ministry to repair damaged sculpture on Bt500,000 budget

A sum of Bt500,000 will be spent on urgent repairs to the partially damaged pagoda at Wat Arun Rajwararam, also known as the Temple of Dawn, after a part from the neck to the head of a horse sculpture installed on the pagoda broke and fell during the past weekend.
It would take three months to finish the repair of the broken horse sculpture and maintain three other horse sculptures on the pagoda in good condition, according to Culture Minister Sukumol Kunplome.
The Culture Ministry would provide the funds for the repairs.
A major repair project would be undertaken in 2017, costing at least Bt80 million, Sukumol said yesterday after her visit to the temple to inspect the damaged parts of the ancient pagoda.
She also invited people to donate money for the repairs to Krungthai Bank account number 018-0-09603-6. The account name is “Kong Thoon Burana Boransathan” (fund for ancient site repair).
Major repair projects of the temple have been done every 10 years, the previous ones being in 1997, 2007 and 2017, said Fine Arts Department director-general Somsuda Leyavanija.
Not only the horse sculpture, but also porcelain pieces and some parts of a half-bird half-woman sculpture of the pagoda have come off due to the rains and winds and their age.
Somsuda said the department’s staff would check the broken part of the sculpture to see if its concrete could be placed on the sculpture. They would use fresh concrete to fill other areas of the sculpture where the old concrete could not be used. They would also repair other decorations of the pagoda that are likely to fall.
In December last year, the month-long inundation and overflowing of Chao Phraya River had led to collapse of the soil as a result an old wall at Wat Arun Rajwararam partially caved in. This is threatening the stability of the pagoda. Fungi were also found covering some parts of the pagoda, according to assistant abbot Phra Khru Arun Thammanuwat.
The assistant abbot said the department’s staff had inspected the damage at that time and had come up with ideas to repair the pagoda, but the department later allocated only a Bt5-million budget to solve the soil collapse problem, while no budget was provided to repair the pagoda.
Somsuda said the last cleanup of the pagoda took place in 1967-1968 and 1995-1996. Normally, they cleaned up the pagoda to get rid of fungi and stains every 23-25 years.
In response to a previous news report that the top of the pagoda had fallen down, the assistant abbot said the media had misreported and that part of the pagoda remains strong. He insisted that the problem occurred only with the horse sculpture, and the temple would temporarily close some parts of the temple for tourists’ safety during the repairs.