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The sandstone landscape is set in a dry deciduous forest and feels eerie. Natural dye paintings of humans, animals, geometric designs and freeform delineations appear on randomrock walls, set amid scattered objects devoted to animalismworking hard to prepare the site to be inscribed. It is now ready to be inspected by the UNESCO committee, which will visit it later this year.”Phu Phra Bat became an historical park in 1988, covering two properties, the park itself and Phra Phutthabat Bua Ban temple 3km away. The park makes up an area of 300 square kilometres and sits to the west of the Phu Phan mountain range in Ban Phue district, 67km from Udon Thani town.The park is a haven of spectacular landscapes and objects dating back to the prehistoric period, or the first century BC. Its sandstone formations in exotic shapes, such as spires and massive boulders poised on top of one another, are thought to have formed through undersea erosion over 15 million years ago. These formations serve as backdrops for art and religious shrines that hint the site has long been used for rituals andtemporary settlement.The sandstone landscape is set in adry deciduous forest and feels eerie. Natural dye paintings of humans, animals, geometric designs and freeform delineations appear on random rock walls, set amid scattered objects devoted to animalism and to the more established religions of the Dvaravati (7th-12th centuries) and Khmer (13th-15th) periods, such as Buddhist sema stones and Hindu- influenced Buddha image bas-reliefs. The neighbouring Phra Phutthabat Bua Ban temple is home to a Buddha footprint and stupa-enshrined relics under the influence of the Lan Chang kingdom (16th-18th centuries). The formations inspired locals to associate them with settings in folk tales.One of the park’s most striking natural rock structures, enhanced by human hands, is Miss Usa’s Tower, where the beautiful king’s adoptedElite+ 49