In February 1942, Go Cay Thi was surveyed and recorded as one of the areas with the largest and highest mound discovered in Oc Eo field, with the height of the mound being about 4-5m compared to surrounding low-lying rice fields. During this survey, a bronze Buddha statue with Indian artistic style mixed with Southeast Asian artistic influences was discovered.
Since 1944, Louis Malleret has been excavating at this site and divided this structure into the pre-chamber and main hall. The main hall includes: small cells around the ground, holes and wells, and middle rooms. In 1998 and 1999, the Archeology Center together with An Giang Provincial Museum and École française d'Extrême-Orient conducted a second excavation to reveal the entire architecture. Excavation results show that, after more than five decades since the first excavation, a large part of the structure of this site has been broken, including almost all brick walls (only high about 2m more than now).
Go Cay Thi A architecture has a large scale (22.0 x 24.54m), facing east (east 180 degrees south). The architectural plan is roughly square and is divided into two parts: the main hall in the west is 22m long (north-south), 16.04m wide (east-west) and the front hall in the east is 16.80m long. 7.4m wide. The main hall is built 1.1m away from the main hall and is connected by a brick floor 1.2m wide and 10.62m long. The total area of the architecture is 488.88m2.
Below the architecture is the foundation reinforced with a layer of very large stone foundation on top of a layer of smaller stones mixed with broken bricks to form the ground and at the bottom is a clay layer. The base is made of bricks built on a reinforced foundation consisting of 11 layers of bricks surrounding tightly packed squares made of a mixture of broken bricks and rammed earth to form the surface of the architectural base (base). On this ground, build another layer 0.6m thick to form the upper layer. In the middle of the main hall there are 4 large rectangular compartments (4 x 2.8m) built on a stone foundation. In 1944, Louis Malleret drew on a cross-section map of the main hall five wells, but in fact they were just gold digging holes of the people. At these points, the brick floor of the monument is still intact.
- Hall: (16.8 x 7.4m) has two steps up and down on both sides of the east side. The facade is designed quite complexly in a backward style in the middle, creating two symmetrical protruding corners. On both sides, there is an up and down path consisting of two steps built in an angled way (turning the corner five times). These steps are built of red and white bricks, different from the pink or brown floor bricks. On each step there is a semicircle built of grapefruit-shaped bricks shaped like two wheels, about 1.4m in diameter. These may be the canopy legs of two large columns on both sides of the facade of the palace, bearing the symbol of a wheel or a ray of sunlight.
- Main hall: (22.0 x 16.04m), the highest part of this wall is in the south, about 1.0m high. The northern section has completely lost its upper part for a distance of 2.5 meters, and the middle section has also lost all its bricks. This is the longest foundation wall of the architecture. The northern foundation wall is 16.0m long and runs east-west. A lot of the bricks on this wall have been removed, the western part has lost all its bricks for about 3.2 meters. The highest point on this northern wall is only about 0.3-0.4m. The southern foundation wall is 16.0m long, the highest point is only 0.6m high. The brick foundation wall on the south side of the structure has had a lot of bricks removed. This part of the foundation wall is connected to the front hall.
The surface of the main hall's floor is built of square and rectangular brick blocks spaced by square compartments with an average side of about 1.2 m tons, packed with clay and bonded rubble. Above this layer of rubble is built with an even distance equal to one edge of the cell (about 1.2m) around the foundation floor about 1.5m from the boundary. According to the current state of the monument, it is estimated that there are 6 compartments on each side in the east - west direction and 10 compartments in the north - south direction.
In addition, in the middle of the main hall there are four large rectangular compartments, each measuring 4.0 x 2.3m, filled with rubble and bricks inside. The four compartments in the main hall are separated from each other by two cross-shaped brick seams. The long brick sidewalk is in the north-south direction, about 0.75m wide, the short east-west sidewalk is 0.85m wide. They are all built solidly and with straight edges.
Louis Malleret related this massive architecture as a type of "Stupa built on a square land" like Borobodur in Java, a type of "stùpa with a round base" in Chantãcãla, an architectural platform with an internal structure divided into compartments in Amãravãte; or similar religious structures of the "temple" type rather than a "holy house", and is also more likely to be a type of "mausoleum" like the "Dakhmas" commonly called "Tower of Tranquility" (Tour du Silence) in India and Persia.
Other opinions say that Go Cay Thi A belongs to the type of royal architecture of a religion. In general, the characteristics of the architecture show that it is likely that this is a Brahmanical temple-style architecture, also bearing the stereotypical mark of Hindu architecture in addition to its own unique features indigenousness. The architectural date is estimated to be around the VI-VII centuries AD.
Characteristics of sites show that Go Cay Thi is one of the typical sites and has a particularly important position in the process of understanding the formation characteristics and development order of Oc Eo - Ba The site in particular and Oc Eo culture in the South in general. The site was ranked a special national site in 2012.
