A Cambodian writer has urged Thais and Cambodians to stop treating history as a contest, as Thailand’s Culture Ministry produced archival records to show that photographs presented as ancient Khmer culture at a Cambodian beauty pageant were taken in Thailand more than a century ago.
Writing in the Phnom Penh Post on Monday, Tesh Chanthorn, who describes himself as “a Cambodian citizen who longs for peace”, said the Angkorian Khmer Empire predates the Thai kingdoms of Sukhothai and Ayutthaya by centuries, but warned his compatriots against turning that into a boast.
“We should not claim that Cambodia is 550 years older than Thailand as a modern country,” he wrote, noting that the modern Thai state emerged through a much longer process and adopted the name Thailand only in the 20th century. “Historical pride, however, should be grounded in evidence, not in exaggerated chronology or the dismissal of neighbouring peoples.”
The dispute centres on images shown on an LED screen during the Miss Universe Cambodia 2026 preliminary round on 18 September, which the host described as “Khmer dress and ancient Khmer culture”, according to Khaosod English.
Culture Minister Sabida Thaiseth said on Monday the photographs show women from Kamphaeng Phet province and were taken there in 1906, during the reign of King Chulalongkorn. They belong to the Royal Photographic Glass Plate Negatives collection at the Vajirayana Royal Library, which was added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World register in 2017, and had been published by the Fine Arts Department on Facebook on 5 August, she said.
The versions shown at the pageant had been cropped to remove the department’s watermark, the minister said. The ministry has sent a warning letter to the pageant’s private organisers asking them to correct the presentation within a set period, and said it wanted to keep the matter from becoming a dispute between the two governments.
Mr Chanthorn’s article, headlined The Weight of Civilisational Antiquity, was framed as a response to Khaosod English’s coverage of the row. It does not address the origin of the photographs. Instead it sets out a chronology beginning in 802 CE, when Jayavarman II was consecrated as universal ruler in a ceremony linked to Phnom Kulen, conventionally taken as the founding of the Angkorian empire, and compares it with the emergence of Sukhothai around 1238 and Ayutthaya around 1350.
He also points to the earlier Funan and Chenla polities and to Angkor Wat, the Bayon and Angkor’s water-management systems as evidence of Khmer achievement, while adding that this “should not be used to deny the historical contributions of Thai communities or other peoples of Southeast Asia”.
“Our shared regional history should encourage scholarship, cultural preservation and mutual understanding,” he wrote. “It should not become a reason for hostility between Cambodian and Thai people.”
The row comes as the two countries remain at odds over their border following last year’s fighting, with talks under way on maritime boundaries in the Gulf of Thailand.
The Miss Universe Cambodia organisers have not publicly responded to the Thai ministry’s statement.
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The story Cambodian responds with Khmer Empire history but no new evidence on disputed photos as seen on Thaiger News.
