On the morning of July 18, at the Dak Lak Museum Hall, the Department of Culture, Sports, and Tourism organized a meeting of the Council for the Appraisal of Artifacts and the profile of the "Thac Hai Drill Collection," proposing its recognition as a national treasure.

The Thac Hai archaeological site is located in Village 6, Ia Jlơi Commune, Ea Sup District, Dak Lak Province. It was excavated by the Dak Lak Museum in collaboration with the National Museum of History for two years (2021 - 2022).

The Thac Hai archaeological site was discovered at the beginning of 2020, and the first excavation was conducted in March 2021. During the second excavation, which took place from the end of 2021 until now, archaeologists collected a significant amount of artifacts, including stone axes, pottery, glassware, tombs, and over 1,000 stone drills of various types, along with tens of thousands of small stone flakes.

The Council for the Appraisal of Artifacts and the "Thac Hai Drill Collection" profile proposed national treasure recognition.

The site has identified a cultural layer approximately 2 meters thick, containing artifacts such as tombs, black earth pits, and various objects like grinding tables, axes, stone hoes, and wooden pounding tables. Notably, sieving also revealed additional stone drills and various artifacts made from materials like opal, jasper, silic, phthanite, as well as countless glass beads.

The discovery of thousands of stone drills and glass beads intricately crafted, along with signs of large-scale production, suggests that the Thac Hai archaeological site (in Ea Sup District, Dak Lak Province) is a complex site that served as a residential area, a burial ground, and a large-scale manufacturing workshop around 2,000 - 3,500 years ago.

Delegates inspecting the excavated artifacts at the Thac Hai archaeological site.

According to the leaders of the Department of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, during the working session, the Council provided many opinions for the specialized section of the Dak Lak Museum to continue revising the information in the "Thac Hai Drill Collection" profile to comply with the criteria for national treasure recognition and achieve consensus in proposing the Thac Hai drill collection for national treasure recognition. Based on the Council's recommendations for the appraisal of artifacts and their profiles, the Department will proceed to prepare the documentation and submit it to the Provincial People's Committee for review before sending it to the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism to propose recognition. The process of preparing the application for national treasure recognition is based on Article 41a of the Cultural Heritage Law 2001 and Clause 21 of Article 1 of the amended Cultural Heritage Law 2009.

The second excavation collected over 1,000 stone drills of various types.

Prior to this, the Department of Culture, Sports, and Tourism issued a decision to establish the Council for the Appraisal of Artifacts and their profiles, including Mr. Thai Hong Ha - Director of the Department of Culture, Sports, and Tourism; the leadership of the Dak Lak Museum and the Cultural Management Department; Prof. Dr. Bui Van Liem, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Archaeology, a member of the National Cultural Heritage Council; Dr. Nguyen Van Doan, Director of the National History Museum, a member of the National Cultural Heritage Council; Dr. Pham Quoc Quan, former Director of the National History Museum, a member of the National Cultural Heritage Council; and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tong Trung Tin, Chairman of the Vietnamese Archaeological Association, a member of the National Cultural Heritage Council.