US Grants Bt34 Million Fund for Wat Chai's Restoration
The United States provides Bt34 million totally to Ayutthaya's Wat Chai Watthanaram restoration project, said Fine Arts Department director-general Anek Sihamat yesterday.
Anek said the World Monument Fund (WMF) said they would give 347,000 USD (about Bt11 million) to the temple restoration project’s phrase 2, after the Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP) had last year funded the project at 700,000 USD (about Bt23 million). Such aid helped boost the two countries’ diplomatic ties which had been going on for 180 years now, he added.
Anek went on that the US embassy also had continuously aided the restoration of ancient sites in Ayutthaya that were hit by the 2011 flood by sending experts to survey the sites and provide suggestions to the Thai department in resoting the sites. In the Wat Chai Watthanaram restoration project’s phrase 2 to commence in February, the US would send six experts to work with the department officials in collecting architecture data. They would use a 3D-laser camera to check the temple structure, do geological exploration on soil layers and water-retention capacity for further research and construction of flood barriers, and install water pressure-measuring devices within the temple compound, according to him.
The press conference for such grant would be organised on January 9 at the National Museum’s Samrammukhamat Pavilion.