Po Rome Tower

On a low mound above dry, sunlit fields stands a tower of old brick. This is Hậu Sanh village, in the Phước Hữu area. The area was once part of Ninh Thuận. Since the administrative changes of 2025, it belongs to Khánh Hòa province. The tower is called Po Rome.

The Cham name of the tower is Bimong Po Ramé. People in the area also call it Hậu Sanh Tower, after the village where it stands.

Po Rome is a Cham tower from the late period, and it differs from the many Cham towers built for Hindu gods. A local source says it was built in the 17th century to worship King Po Rome. The Cham, a people of south-central Vietnam whose ancestors lived in the ancient kingdom of Champa, remember him as a ruler who served the country and its people. His name is tied to irrigation and farming. After his death he was deified and worshipped. This is a notable feature of Cham culture. A leader who has done great good can become a god, and the tower built for him becomes a place where the community keeps its memory.

In August 1992, the tower was ranked a national historical and cultural monument.

The greatest treasure of the site is the relief of King Po Rome. The Department of Cultural Heritage dates it to the 17th century, and it is kept in this very tower. In 2020, the Prime Minister signed a decision recognizing it as a National Treasure.

The main tower still stands, fairly whole. Around it, traces of foundations mark smaller buildings that have fallen. A local source says the old complex had a main tower, a gate tower and a fire tower. The gate tower and the fire tower are gone, and only traces remain. So Po Rome was never a single building. It was a sacred site laid out with a clear plan.

The tower is also part of the yearly religious life of the Cham. At the Katê festival, the Cham community of this region gathers here. This is a living practice, not a memory of the past. The tower is not a ruin to be toured. It is a sacred place for a community that is still here.

Seen from outside, the tower is a mass of brick that is not very large. Yet it has stood for many hundreds of years under the sun of old Ninh Thuận. The Cham way of building towers did not use ordinary mortar, and how it was done has still not been fully explained. What held those bricks together through rain, sun and time remains a puzzle.

What stays in the mind about Po Rome is not the size of the tower or its age. It is what remains: the story of a king remembered long enough for a tower to be built to worship him, and a treasure from the 17th century that still sits where it was made.