This Buddha head was made by pressing slabs of clay into a piece mould, after which facial features were finely carved into the wet clay prior to firing. The broad curvaceous smile and eyebrows create a meditative quality, in contrast to the tight, conical hair curls individually modeled and inserted into the scalp, which provide texture. Such fragments have been found at stupas and other Mon sites at ancient Haripunchai (present-day Lamphun). Stepped stupas housed large stucco or clay figures of the Buddha. Haripunchai art derived from the Dvaravati style that was created by the Mon; a culture that emerged from southern Burma and spread into central Thailand (6th to 13th centuries).
