undertook research on the natural sciences, anthropology and antiquities. 7 At
the meeting of the Siam Society, Gerini alluded to the importance of both
ancient inscriptions and archaeological remains, and invited the audience to
look for them. His plea would meet with success. Three meetings later a paper
was presented on the antiquities of the Mun valley. In 1905 a paper given by
W. W. Bourke focused on the archaeology of peninsular Siam, identifying the
beads found at Krabi as having been made in India, and arguing that the same
origin had to be inferred for the tin mine shafts of Phuket Island (Davis 1989).
In addition to the Siam Society, the Antiquarian Society (or Boran Kadi
Samosorn) founded by King Chulalongkorn in 1907 should also be men-
tioned. In itsWrst meeting the king stated that the origin of Siam should date
back a thousand years (Shoocongdej forthcoming). Despite the signiWcance of
these two societies, however, in administrative terms they cannot be com-
pared to the Archaeological Survey of India of 1861–1902, the E ́cole Franc ̧aise
d’Extreˆme Orient of 1900 and the Dutch Indies Commission for Archaeo-
logical Research of 1901. Only in 1924, after the First World War, would the
state organize the Fine Arts Department to control everything related to
ancient monuments and works of art (Peleggi 2001: 13–18) and, in 1926,
the National Museum of Siam (Higham 1989: 25; Snellgrove 2004: 4). The lack
of oYcial state funding for archaeology in Thailand during the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries may denote the lack of the need for an arch-
aeological justiWcation for the historical underpinning of Siam as an entity,
for other symbols such as the monarchy were considered powerful enough.
CONCLUSION: COLONIAL DISCOURSES, RACISM,
COMPETITION, AND RESISTANCEThe acquisition of knowledge concerning the colonies, their topography,
weather systems, geology, and human inhabitants would become key in the
colonial appropriation of territories located so far away from the nineteenth-
century European imperial powers. This endeavour was not easy. To begin
with, it was left in the hands of a few committed individuals who were
genuinely moved by a rational quest for the Good, the Rational, and the
Truth. Their resolution in attaining these conferred them with social prestige.
As RaZes would say:
Insatiable ambition, boundless curiosity, are to be reckoned among the more prom-
inent of the attributes with which man is endowed. To what mighty ends have they not
7 http:sedi.esteri.it/bangkok/Thailandia/relazioni_storiche_italo_thailan.htm.South and South East Asia 239