Cambodia - The Temples of Angkor

In the language of the ancient Khmer, and of the Khmer people of contemporary Cambodia, Angkor means the City or the capital. The Khmer Empire flourished from the ninth century AD. Financed by the spoils of war, the temple was designed by the kings architect and built from a wax model by artisans, workers and slaves who transported stones in 3000 oxcarts, completing it within 37 years. The temple was dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu; by the fall of the empire in the fifteenth century, the site had become a Buddhist shrine. Angkor What is partly protected from its most lethal destroyer, water, by a network of hidden drains emplaced in the 1960s by the French scholar and former conservator Bernard Philippe Groslier and his staff of 1000.

As impressive as are the temples of Angkor, it was the whole complex of 72 major monuments and the irrigation system that made it one of the architectural wonders of the world. The Khmer were able to adapt aspects of Hinduism introduced to Southeast Asia by Indian traders as early as the fifteenth century A.D. and to mould them into artistic, religious and political expressions that became uniquely theirs. The bas-reliefs are among the finest artistic creations of the civilization that dominated Indochina for more than 6 centuries before falling to the Siamese for the last time in 1431. Other pieces of great artistic merit, especially statuary, have been removed to the National Museum at Phnom Penn, where they are safe, at least from the elements.

Structural weaknesses inherent in Khmer building techniques and the assaults of water and trees have conspired against the monuments. When maintenance is neglected, and birds excrete seeds of the fig tree on the tops of monuments, the seeds may germinate and send down roots. Small roots also enter between stones, and as they grow larger they tear the stones apart. But while the tree lives, its roots often hold the parted stones together as would a net. Wounds in stone flesh of a god has been made by rifle fire since 1972, but whether by a Vietnamese, Khmer Rouge, soldiers of recent regimes, or drunken militiamen is unknown. Random violence has marred Angkor, but all factions seem to have agreed that the temple complex should be immune from major battles.

Abigail Sarah Bagraim, Email info@abigailsarah.co.za

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