Who is in the Nai Khanom Tom photo?

[Tom]

Everytime you look Nai Khanom Tom on the internet you find the same picture of one guy. Who is that, since there was no photography back then? Thank you very much!

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

That's a really good question! Most of the photos I see lately are of the statue made in his honor, but yes, totally there is a photo that has been associated with him as well. Doing a quick reverse image search seems to suggest that the association established on old Muay Thai Institute website postings. Here is an example https://www.muaythai-institute.com/history - as you can see, there are lots of old photos placed in proximity to historic descriptions. I doubt anyone knows who the photo is of.

An interesting side note about Nai Khanom Tom is that his entire story is based on only 7 lines of verse in an epic poem, embellished as the years have gone on.

[Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu]

Thais definitely don't have a problem with borrowing or using images without citation, so likely this image we all see was used either with the intention of having a photo taken "as Nai Khanomtom" or they just used any nice photo of a handsome man in a mongkon and it stuck.