David K. Wyatt papers

Collection — Multiple Containers

Identifier: 14-27-3511

Scope and content

Papers include reprints, articles, and books; unpublished manuscripts for book projects; lecture notes for classes; slides; CDs of lectures and texts; and research materials.

Scope and content

Files relating to the Academic Advisory Council for Thailand (AACT), a group established to provide the Mission of the Agency for International Development in Thailand with a source of advice from the American academic community.

Scope and content

Working copy of the Chiang Mai Chronicle, a four-volume set with translations on the left page and transcriptions from Northern Thai into Central Thai on the right page; a Thai chronology; and a list of microfilms. The first draft was done by David Wyatt from 1993-1994; a revision by Wyatt and Aroonrut Wichienkeeo was done in 1994-1995. The book was published by Silkworm Books in Chiang Mai in 1995.

Scope and content

Also miscellaneous items including covers from Le Petit Journal, 10 June 1893 and 19 September 1897; a Thai poster about palm-leaf and other manuscripts; and an aerial photograph of the Rincome Hotel in Chiang Mai.

Scope and content

Blank manuscript pieces donated by David Wyatt include: a palm leaf sample of what Thai, Lao, and Khmer monks (among others) used in the past and still use today to create palm leaf manuscripts. These leaves are already prepared and ready for inscriptions. After being inscribed, a solution is applied and washed off, leaving dark residue in the inscriptions so they can be read easily. The blank folding manuscript is commonly used in Myanmar for much the same purposes as palm leaf manuscripts are in other parts of Southeast Asia.

Dates

1893-1995,-1970-1995 (bulk)

Creator

Wyatt, David K. (Person)
ʻArunrat Wichīankhīeo. (Person)

Restrictions on Access

Access to Box 2 restricted until 2026.

Biographical / Historical

Historian. David K. Wyatt studied philosophy at Harvard University, receiving a Bachelor's degree in 1959. He received a M.A. in History from Boston University in 1960, and a Ph.D. in History from Cornell University in 1966. From 1964 to 1968, he taught Southeast Asia History at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. After a year at the University of Michigan, in 1969 he came to Cornell University, where he served as the Director of the Southeast Asia Program, Chair of the Department of History, and the John Stambaugh Professor of History & Asian Studies before his retirement in 2002. Dr. Wyatt briefly served as interim curator of the Echols Collection at Cornell University in 2005. The recipient of numerous awards in his field, he is recognized as a leading authority on Southeast Asia and the foremost historian of Thailand. He was the John Stambaugh Professor of History & Asian Studies, Emeritus at Cornell.