Angkor (heritage site)

Angkor (អង្គរ, Angkor) is an archaeological site in Siem Reap province, Cambodia, and the capital of the Khmer Empire from the 9th to the 15th century. Its park holds the remains of the empire's successive capitals, with temples such as Angkor Wat, the Bayon, Preah Khan and Ta Prohm.

Illustration inspired by the moats and temple towers of the park.

Heritage site details
Also known as	Angkor Archaeological Park
Site type	Archaeological site
Location	Siem Reap province
Country	Cambodia
Period	9th to 15th century
Subjects	History & Remembrance; Religion & Spiritual Life

History

For several centuries Angkor was the center of the Khmer Kingdom. Its rulers built temples, water works, roads, city plans and large reservoirs. The name Angkor comes from the Khmer word nokor, which in turn comes from the Sanskrit nagara, meaning "city." The city is also known as Yasodharapura and Angkor Thom.

The formation of the Khmer Empire is linked to Jayavarman II. In 802 he declared himself universal ruler at a ceremony on Kulen Mountain and established the devaraja, or divine kingship, tradition. He founded Hariharalaya near modern Roluos, about 15 kilometers (9 miles) southeast of where Angkor later rose. His successor Indravarman I (877 to 889) built the temple of Preah Ko and a large reservoir north of the capital to water the rice fields.

Yasovarman I, who became king in 889, moved the capital northwest in the late ninth century and founded Yasodharapura, the city that later became known as Angkor. He placed his central temple, Bakheng, on Phnom Bakheng, the area's one natural hill, about 70 meters (230 feet) above the plain. The roughly square city walls measured about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) on each side, and he also built the Eastern Baray reservoir. In the early tenth century Jayavarman IV moved the capital to Koh Ker, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) to the northeast. Rajendravarman II (944 to 968) built East Mebon on an island in the Eastern Baray. Under Jayavarman V (968 to 1001), Ta Keo became the first Angkor temple built entirely of sandstone. Work on the Western Baray, about 8 by 2.2 kilometers (5 by 1.4 miles), began under Suryavarman I, and the pyramid temples of Phimeanakas and the Baphuon date from his reign and that of Udayadityavarman II (1050 to 1066). This system of canals and reservoirs supported rice surpluses that sustained the kingdom for about five centuries.

Suryavarman II, who reigned from 1113 to about 1150, commissioned Angkor Wat in the twelfth century as a temple dedicated to Vishnu. In 1177 Cham forces came by water, sacked the capital and occupied it. A Cambodian prince, later King Jayavarman VII, defeated the Chams and rebuilt the city, which became known as Angkor Thom, meaning "Great City." Under Jayavarman VII, who reigned from 1181 to about 1220, Angkor Thom and its central Bayon temple were built around 1200. He followed Mahayana Buddhism, rebuilt the highways leading out to the provinces and built more than 100 hospitals and more than 100 rest houses across his kingdom. Larger-than-life portrait statues of the king have been found at several sites.

The city's political importance declined after Jayavarman VII's reign, and few stone monuments were raised after his death. Tai armies raided Angkor in the mid-thirteenth century, yet it remained a crowded and wealthy city for two more centuries. In the late thirteenth century, the Chinese envoy Zhou Daguan counted it among the most magnificent capitals in Asia. Most Cambodians turned to Theravada Buddhism in the thirteenth century. The decline was probably hastened as the irrigation system wore down. Wars and royal rivalries drew resources away from its upkeep, and deforestation and overuse of the land may have added flooding and silt to the canals.

Ayutthaya captured and sacked Angkor in 1431, and the Cambodian capital moved south. A Cambodian king visited in the sixteenth century, restored some temples and probably lived in the city for a time. Angkor Wat remained an important pilgrimage site after the decline of the ancient city because Theravada Buddhist monks maintained it, and a Buddhist monastery stood beside it for centuries.

The French colonial regime, established in Cambodia in 1863, made Angkor a focus of study. French archaeologists, working later under the École Française d'Extrême-Orient, read the inscriptions, dated the temples and partly restored the temples, reservoirs and canals. After independence in 1953, Angkor became a central part of Cambodia's national identity, and French and Khmer archaeologists kept working there for 17 years of peace. The civil war and the Khmer Rouge years, including Democratic Kampuchea (1975 to 1979), halted that work. The site suffered war damage and theft, and neglect left the buildings open to plant growth and erosion. Major restoration resumed in the late 1980s.

Architecture and layout

The archaeological park covers approximately 400 square kilometers (154 square miles) and includes numerous temples, reservoirs, canals, dikes and roads. Most of its reservoirs, called barays, and canals still exist. Its surviving buildings are mostly brick and stone shrines. Ordinary houses were built of wood, thatch and bamboo and have disappeared.

Khmer city and temple planning connected royal authority with Indian ideas of the cosmos, placing central temples in symbolic relation to Mount Meru, the home of the gods. Temple walls represented the mountains around the cosmos, while moats and reservoirs stood for the cosmic waters and also served water management and rice farming. Angkor Wat uses raised levels and a central tower to create a temple-mountain form linked to Mount Meru. Its large moat and causeway lead the way to the enclosed sanctuary, and the causeway is edged with railings in the form of nagas, or water serpents.

Art and inscriptions

Angkor Wat's galleries contain bas-reliefs, or carvings raised from a flat stone surface, showing episodes from the Mahabharata and Ramayana, religious stories and scenes from Suryavarman II's court. Hundreds of carved apsaras, celestial dancers, adorn the temple. The towers of the Bayon carry 216 faces, and its reliefs show battles with Champa and scenes of Cambodian life in the twelfth century. Khmer poets composed inscriptions that survive at many of the temples. The complex represents Khmer artistic development from the ninth to the fourteenth centuries and includes major works such as Angkor Wat, the Bayon and Banteay Srei.

Living heritage

Angkor is a living site. Its inhabitants venerate the temple deities and hold ceremonies with prayers, traditional music and dance. More than 100,000 people live in 112 historic settlements across the park, and some villages trace their ancestors to the Angkor period. Residents farm, especially rice. Residents gather medicinal plants in the park and bring them to the temples to be blessed. Preah Khan is regarded as a former university of medicine, and Neak Poan as an ancient hospital. Textile weaving, basket weaving and palm sugar making support local families.

Significance and conservation

Angkor carries cultural, religious and symbolic value, with high architectural, archaeological and artistic importance. Its cultural influence extended across much of Southeast Asia and shaped the region's own artistic development. UNESCO inscribed Angkor on the World Heritage List in 1992 and placed it on the List of World Heritage in Danger the same year. It was removed from that list in 2004.

The APSARA National Authority, the Authority for the protection of the site and the management of the Angkor Region, manages and protects the property. The International Coordinating Committee for the Safeguarding and Development of the historic site of Angkor, or ICC-Angkor, was created on October 13, 1993. It coordinates scientific, restoration and conservation projects and monitors the conservation of the property by the APSARA National Authority. An international safeguarding program for Angkor began in 1993, and missions from France, Italy, Japan and other countries work at the site. Earlier conservation work involved institutions including the École Française d'Extrême-Orient, the Archaeological Survey of India, PKZ and the World Monuments Fund.

The property is legally protected by the Royal Decree on the Zoning of the Region of Siem Reap/Angkor, adopted on May 28, 1994, and the Law on the protection of the natural and cultural heritage, promulgated on January 25, 1996, along with other decrees, decisions and sub-decrees. A government decision of September 16, 2004, made the lands in zones 1 and 2 State properties. Boundary posts for those zones were set in 2004 and 2009, and the work was completed in 2012.

The site's integrity is affected by the growth of settlements within the park and by nearby Siem Reap as a center of tourism. Planning programs built with New Zealand, and with Australia and UNESCO, support land-use mapping, a tourism management plan, a risk map of the monuments and small tourism projects run with residents. From August 10 to 22, 2016, a World Heritage Volunteers project brought local, national and international volunteers to the northern area of the park. They worked in excavation, stone conservation and heritage workshops for local youth and visitors, with APSARA and the Union of Youth Federations of Cambodia as partners. The project also supported a code of conduct for visitors and residents and village homestays.

Visiting

The temples lie about 6 kilometers (4 miles) north of Siem Reap. Several hundred thousand people visited each year as of 2017.

References