Chapter 3 The Ancient Angkor

សាកលវទិ្យាល័យកម្ពុជាអន្តរជាតិCambodian International University

Khmer Civilization

The Ancient Angkorian Civilization

Lecturer: CHEA Thearith

http://www.chea.edu.kh/

Review about Cambodia

• Size: 181, 035 Sq. Km.• Population: 14 Million (90%

Khmer, 5% Vietnamese, 1% Chinese).

• Life Expectancy: 57M/62F• Religion: Theravada Buddhist.• GDP/capita: $1,800.00• Form: Constitutional

Monarchy.• System: Parliamentary

bicameral• Capital: Phnom Penh

• The temples of Ancient Angkor-the largest ruins in

the world and the only archaeological site visible

form outer space-present their own share of riddles

and these have prompted fanciful explaination for

generations of visitors and readers.

• Angkor was discovered by the French naturalist

Henri Mouhot by accident in 1860-as he was guided

there by a French priest, Father Sylvester.

The Ancient Angkorean Civilization

• Europeans commonly believed that the builders belonged

to a “vanished race”. Other claimed that the city was of

Indian, Roman, or even Italian origin, alleging common

features with Mediterranean architecture.

• The ancestors of today’s Khmers built Angkor and the

temple complex of the of the Heritage Area as the centre

of a powerful empire and of a dispersed city with

between 700 000 and one million inhabitants.


• Angkor was the most populous city of antiquity,

sprawling over an area of 1000 square kilometres or

more.

• The city was abandoned rather later than the romantics

would have us believe.

• It was still inhabited in the 16th century when Iberian

monks first visited Cambodia. (Antonio da Megdalena,

Portuguese monk, visited Angkor in 1586)



• The is a lively debate about a number of features of

Angkorean Civilization, and the reasons why Angkor

was deserted.

• The causes contributed to the collapse of the great

civilization, perhaps the most important was ecological

degradation of the forests, water and soil.

Source of information• The ancient Khmers had libraries, but the books have vanished.

• The Khmers of course did leave a written record, but it was

carved in stone rather than written on paper.

• The soft Irish climate and the dry desert air have been kinder to

paper and papyrus than the tropical heat, humidity, and voracious

insects have been to the palm leaf of books of the ancient

Khmers.

Source of information about Angkor has been known from

inscriptions, temples (Bas reliefs, sculptures and statues), and

Chinese record.

Source of information Inscriptions were written into two languages:

Sanskrit inscriptions: composed in rhyme to praise the

kings, heroes and prayers to Deva (Gods) or Buddha; and

tell us the genealogies of the kings, ruling families and

Brahman priests.

Khmer inscriptions: composed in prose that show about

building temple or Asrama and the number of people who

served at the temples, everyday lives, customs and

occupations of the people.

Source of information

Temples (Bas reliefs, sculptures and statues):

Bas reliefs and other items from excavation tell us

about their kings, heroes, warriors, people, people

living, belief, traditions…

Sculptures and statues: the edge of the skirt, hair style,

and jewelry allows us to determine the evolution of

Khmer art style.

Source of information

Chinese record: there is only written eyewitness record

of Angkor, The Customs of Cambodia (The customs

of Chenla people), written during the late 13th century

by the Chinese traveller Zhou Daguan (Chou Ta-

Kwan), who spent a year in the capital shortly after the

death of King Jayavarman VIII, the last great builder

of Angkor. (1296-1297)

• In 802, Jayavarman II proclaimed himself god-king of Cambodia. He did so through a Hindu ritual involving worship of Shiva, king of the gods.

• A royal cult developed, involved an annual festival during which a statue of Shiva was paraded thru the capital city.

• The ceremony not only proclaimed the devaraja but Cambodia’ permanent separation from Java.

Ritually sanctifying a symbol of the devaraja.

Why was the capital moved?

• This is no entirely explanation as to why Jayavarman II

moved his capital from the Mekong Valley to the drier

region at the north-west tip of the great lake.

• Jayavarman II’s arrival was to transform the region

and unify the petty Khmer principalities into the single

polity the was become the centre of one of the most

powerful, wealthy and populous civilizations in ancient

history.


• Angkor was to control an empire that stretched from

the South China Sea to the Isthmus of Kra and the

Andaman Sea, and northwards into what is today Laos.

• Jayavarman II would build three capitals, abandoning

each before he made his final choice at Roulous.

• Michael Vickery has suggested that the move resulted

from military and political pressure from the hostile

kingdom of Champa or Javanese.


• Other writers have suggested that the lake region was

the “natural centre” of the Cambodia state.

Road linking the valleys of the Mekong and Menam,

with ample supplies of sandstone for building.

Rich in natural resources such as timber and fish, and

with fertile soil to grow rice to feed a growing

population.


• Christopher Pym argues that the move was sparked by

Jayavarman’s desire to get out of the “centre of things”

in Southeast Asia by relocating to a remote site-Great

Lake is almost boundless source of the fish and ample

timber.

• The intriguing suggestion is that climate change might

have contributed to the move.


• James Good man, an engineer with an interest in

archaeology, argued that the move ‘coincided with

series of remarkable changes in global climate

patterns’ associated with the southern Oscillation

Index (ENSO).

• The shift to the Great Lake region would have been

due at least in part to religious imperatives; Cambodia

was , and still is, an intensely religious society.


• Angkor stood on higher ground and just as India has

the sacred mountain (Mount Meru) and the sacred

Ganges.

• The decisions to shift the Khmer capital to Angkor was

probably caused by a variety of overlapping political,

economic, religious and perhaps ecological factors.


• Jean Przyluski: Angkor Wat was both a temple and the

tomb of Suryavarman II, and thus both a sepulchre and

the centre of a funerary cult.

• Slave, serfs and artisans expended the sweat of

centuries on the sandstone mausoleums-cum-temples

of the Kamrateng Jagat, the ‘lords of the universe’,

who ruled over them.

The kings, their temples and monuments

• George Coedés: argued in his book that Angkor wat

are at one and the same time funerary temples,

mausoleums and tombs, the ‘distinctive glory of the

Khmer Empire’

• For many free man-serfs at least-it was an honour to

toil on the monuments for the glory of the god-king;

for many slaves, their condition was one legitimised by

age-old custom, as natural as the setting of the sun.

They had no words for freedom and liberty.


• Angkor Wat is a temple dedicated to Vishnu, but the

deity worshipped here is not the same as the ancient

god of the Hindu triumvirate.

• Paul Mus: these building are not so much shelters for

the dead ‘as a kind of new architectural body-a house

of the dead but only in the same way that his body live

in it while still alive’.

• The temple are houses of the god-kings, the lords of

the universe, immortalised in solid rock.


• The monument building obsession began some years

after the death of Jayavarman II’s son and successor,

Jayavarman III.

Jyavarman II (834-850)

Capital: Hiriharalaya (Rolous)

Religion: Brahmanism (Shiva)

Acheivements: Aram Roung Chin, Pong Keng Kong


Indravarman I (877-889)

Capital: Hiriharalaya (Rolous)

Religion: Brahmanism (Shiva)

Acheivements: Bakong temple, Phreak koh and Baray

Indratataka.


Yasovarman I (889-899)

Capital: Yasodharapura (Angkor city)

Religion: Brahmanism

Acheivements: LoLai, Bakeng temple, Phnom krom

temple, phnom bok temple and Preah Vihear.


Suryavarman I (1002-1050)


Religion: Buddhism (Mahayana)

Acheivements: Preah Vihea, Preah Khan Kompong

Svay, Chiso mountian temple.


Suryavarman II (1113-1150): reigned the early part of the

12th century, ordered the construction of what is arguably

the most famous of Angkorean temple, Angkor Wat, the

name of which is often confused with the city of Angkor

itself because of its imposing beauty and scale.


Religion: Brahmanism (Vishnu)

Acheivements: Angkor Wat, Banteay Samré, Dhamanuda

temple and Phreah Pito temple


Jayavarman VII (1002-1050)

Capital: Yasodharapura ( Third Angkor city)

Religion: Buddhism (Mahayana)

Acheivements: Bayon temple, Ta Prom Temple, Phreah

Khan, Neak Pean, Banteay Kdey, Bantery Chhmar


BayonPrah Khan Neak Pean

• Zhou Daguan: Khemr king is burried at Phnom

Bakheng.

• The empire was administered and policed via a

network of well-maintained roads, which also served

for trade purpose.

• One particularly imposing bridge, the Spean Prab Tes,

crosses the ravine of the Stung Chikreng and is still

open to traffic.


Spean Brab Tes -Bridge of Indication- is the oldest historical bridge in Cambodia, which was constructed during the era of the King Jayavaraman the VII.

This Bridge is about 1000 years old, almost the same period of Angkor Wat, located in Kampong Kdey district, Siem Reap.


• Angkor was on a peak in late

12th and early 13th centuries,

Jayavarman VII’s reign.

• Angkor extended from the

Andaman Sea in modern

Myanmar to the Southern Sea in

today’s Vietnam, and far

northwards into what is now

Laos.

The Climax of Empire

• An inscription translated by George Coedés recorded

that the devaraja cult necessitated 306 372 ‘servitors’

, who lived in 13 500 villages and ate 38 000 tons of

rice every year.

• However, as George Coedés has written, the huge

effort needed to carry out Jayavarman VII’s building

program as an ultimately unsustainable drain on the

resources of the empire.


• Angkor empire was maintained by force of arms, often

clashing with neighbouring people such as Chams and

later the Thais, both of whom were formidable

opponents.

• War weapons: swords, lances, bows and arrows and

clubs.

• Catapults are mounted on carts or the backs of

elephants. Commanders canter on horseback while

their men march past resolutely in grim processions.


• Jayavarman VII was extoled Ta Prom inscription as

“provident and compassionate ruler”. Although he was

determined to bend the population to his will to make his

mark on posterity in the form of huge temples and

monuments, he also built 102 hospitals and 124 six-

roomed hall.

• The last great spurt of building activity occurred during

the reign of Jayavarman VII (1181-1219): Bayon, Ta

Prom, Banteay Kdei, Preah Khan, Banteay Chhmar.


• There are three kinds of stone used to construct the

temples: laterite, sandstone, and brick.

• Laterite was obtainable locally, but the sandstone was

brought considerable distance form the Phnom Kulen

quarries, where men cut it from the living rock with

crowbars, chisels and fire.

• In the past, observers have speculated that the blocks were

dragged by elephants, loaded on ox carts, floated down the

river from Phnom Kulen or sometimes taken on rafts down

other tributaries, then up to Siem Reap river to Angkor.

Building The Temple

• With an attempt was made to float stone down the

river from accent quarries in 1999, elephant, ox cart,

and raft was an unlikely method; it is more likely

that human muscle power was employed with the

use of wooden rollers, crowbars, and rattan ropes.

• Complex division of labour at the actual construction

sites: general labourers, skilled artisans and brick

layers, carpenters, scaffolders and riggers, and

metalworkers.

Building The Temple

• The builders probably used a variety of lifting gear to assist

in their work: metal lifting dogs and clamps, rope slings,

wooden pegs, gin poles, sheerlegs, gallows frames, whip

hoists and rudimentary cranes.

• One of the most curious facts about Khmer building

techniques is that they never discovered the secret of the

true arch, which employs a keystone to prevent it from

falling down. (method of corbelling-gradually bringing in

two facing edges of wall until they touch- giving an almost

gothic appearance to the edifices.

Building The Temple

• Angkor empire comprised some 90 provinces at the

time of Zhou Daguan’s visit. Angkor complex was

the home to up to one million inhabitants.

• The temples with the spectacular stone and brick left

by the king have shown us just some part of the story

about Angkor.

• Zhou Daguan has left us fascinating details of what

the city was like its period of human occupation.

What kind of civilization built the monuments?

• Zhou Daguan: walled city with 5 gates (two gates in he

East, known as victory gate) and lines of statues a

‘brilliant with gold’. Neak Pean, Bayon, Royal Palace.

• The king has five facial wives, and three to five thousand

concubines who seldom set foot outside the palace.

• The king left palace with a grand procession of soldiers,

palace girls, royal minister and princes.

• The king himself stood erect on an elephant and holding

in his hand the sacred swood.

What kind of civilization built the monuments?

• Angkor was ruled by 28 kings with the theory of

kingship was hereditary and monarchs were Devarajas,

in practice usurpers were common enough, the

qualification being that they had to prove they were

blood descendants of Jayavarman II.

• It was for this reason that dignitaries and military

leaders were required to wear an oath in the reign of

Soryavarman I in1011 A.D.

The Angkorean social system

Chapter 3 The Ancient Angkor

Art & Photos

Transcript of Chapter 3 The Ancient Angkor