Wat Phra Kaew. Also known as the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. It contains a palladium of Thailand: the Emerald Buddha. The Temple is on the grounds of the Grand Palace in Bangkok; only the king is allowed to touch the statue. The site was first developed by King Rama I for his coronation in 1785.
Emerald Buddha. It is carved from a green stone (jasper or jade), and decorated with gold, and it probably dates back to the mid-15th century, and there are also Pali texts about the Emerald Buddha dating back to the 15th century. The legend says the statue dates back to 43 BCE, having been created in Pataliputra (modern Patna) in India. I already know what a "palladium" is but now I am curious to read the Wikipedia article to see what other palladia there are out there in the world!
Palladium. I learned that the Greco-Roman idea of the palladium was adopted by Christianity. Christian armies would carry palladia into battle, and in those cases, they were called vexilla. The Mandylion (Image of Edessa) is a famous Christian example. The article mentions the Emerald Buddha, and it explains that some consider the London Stone to be a palladium.
London Stone. The Stone dates back to at least 1100, and may be Roman. There is a written description from the 16th century: It was described by the London historian John Stow in 1598 as "a great stone called London stone", "pitched upright... fixed in the ground verie deep, fastned with bars of iron". As a tourist in London in 1850 Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote about going to see the stone! Writers how like the idea of that the stone was a palladium sometimes call it the "Brutus stone," based on the legend that Brutus brought it with him to England: Brutus, legendary king of Britain.
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