Thu Thien Cham Tower

Thu Thien is a solitary twelfth-century Cham tower on the bank of the Kon River (Sông Côn) in Tay Son District, Binh Dinh Province. The building is small and almost devoid of carved decoration: smooth brick walls and false doorways make it a restrained variant of the Champa style beside its far more ornate neighbours. It was apparently raised in the first half of the twelfth century and, unlike most Cham sanctuaries, stands not on a hill but right on the plain by the southern bank of the river, roughly a kilometre from Highway 19. For centuries the tower stood abandoned, the brickwork parted in places and became overgrown with grass, which is why it was only granted the status of a national architectural monument in 1995, and work to consolidate the walls is still going on. Binh Dinh is the province with the richest Champa heritage in the country: eight complexes have survived here, and among them Thu Thien is one of the most modest and least visited. Tay Son District is known for something else: the Tay Son brothers, who raised their rebellion at the end of the eighteenth century, came from here, and a few kilometres from the tower stands the Quang Trung Museum dedicated to them. Thu Thien is usually seen on the way to the Duong Long complex.

On the map