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Published on February 17, 2008

Foster said if approved the budget would be allocated through the Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation. The Congress will decide in September whether to support the project, said Foster, who was visiting the archaeological heritage site at Ban Rai and the Tham Lod rock shelters in Pang Mapha district, Mae Hong Son province.

He said the idea to support the renovation of traditional Thai houses was initiated by SEAMEO-Spafa, a Regional Centre for Archaeology and Fine Arts under the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation.

Set up by the US Congress in 2001, the Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation allows US ambassadors to support efforts in their host countries to rescue cultural heritage that is fragile and

in danger of being lost forever.

In Thailand, the fund has contributed to the preservation of traditional Thai textile patterns and weaving techniques at the Golden Jubilee Royal Goldsmith College at the Grand Palace and also to the preservation and management of the archaeological heritage of the Ban Rai and Tham Lod rock shelters in Mae Hong Son.

Archaeologists say the limestone formations and caves at Ban Rai and Tham Lod were part of a sacred space and burial ground from the Pleistocene to the Iron Age.

The Nation