The journal publishes original articles of a scholarly nature, in English, on Thailand and neighbouring countries in a wide range of disciplines including archaeology, epigraphy, history, ethnology, religion, language, literature, art and architecture, and performing arts.

77/1 (1989), showing: “Detail from a Northern Thai style mural in Wat Phra Sing, Chiang Mai.

[8] The size of the journal shrank in the 1940s, then expanded from the mid-1950s with more articles on archeology, anthropology (especially of hill people), and other social sciences.

In 1912, the journal carried an article by King Vajiravudh, Rama VI, on “The Romanisation of Siamese Words.” For some years, the society had discussed the need for a standard system for transcribing Thai into Roman characters.

[9] In his article, King Vajiravudh proposed an alternative system, which had an “Orientalist” method for transcribing consonants in words derived from Pali-Sanskrit, a parallel and different system for transcribing consonants in “purely Siamese” words, and 30 representations of vowel sounds.

The king concluded: “I should be glad to see some sort of uniform system adopted, rather than to have to endure the haphazard and fanciful systems, which not only each body of men but also each individual, seems to use for romanising my language.”[10] In the post-World War II period, Hans Penth authored 24 articles between 1967 and 2003, though many were short notes.

Of these, 24 were in a series of “Epigraphic and Historical Studies,” which provided the first English translations and interpretations of the corpus of inscriptions, mainly from Sukhothai and associated sites.

[12] Griswold (1906–1991) was a Baltimore native, Princeton graduate, and investment banker who was parachuted into Thailand behind Japanese lines during World War II.

Prasert na Nagara (1918–2018) began his career as an agricultural engineer before discovering his talent and love for languages and history.