Cultural object
Jayavarman VII (National Museum of Cambodia)
Jayavarman VII is a late 12th- or early 13th-century sandstone portrait statue of the Khmer king, held by the National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh.[1][2] Found in pieces at Angkor Thom between 1924 and 1931, the figure was matched with its arms in 2019.[3]
The object
The statue is carved from sandstone and stands 137.5 centimeters (54 inches) high.[2] The museum records it under the numbers B.347, B.19.1 and Ka.1703.[1][2] The portrait is presumed to represent Jayavarman VII, and scholars identify it as a likeness of the king in his mature years by comparison with similar images.[1][3] The museum considers the modeling to show exceptional mastery of the art.[2]
The statue's facial expression is marked by semi-closed eyes, a light smile, a nose with three lobes, a large forehead, lips that are neither thin nor thick, and long ear lobes.[1] The museum reads these traits as Khmer features and the expression as one of supreme knowledge, compassion and peace linked to the king's power.[1][2]
Iconography
This statue is dated to the Bayon style, whose portraiture the museum characterizes as smiling and mystical.[1] The pose shows humility, compassion, power and knowledge.[3] The statue's arms were identified as forming a sampeah, the traditional Cambodian respectful greeting with palms joined, at chest level.[3]
The king followed Mahayana Buddhism while tolerating Brahmanism, and the main deities of his faith were Lokesvara and Prajnaparamita.[1] The four-faced towers of the Bayon represent the compassionate bodhisattva Lokesvara, with whom Jayavarman VII identified himself.[1]
Date and origin
The museum dates the statue to the late 12th to early 13th century.[1] The statue came from Krol Romeas at Angkor Thom in Siem Reap province.[1][2] The sculpture is one of a group of large stone images of Jayavarman VII distributed across the extended Khmer kingdom during the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.[3] The kingdom then reached into present-day Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.[3] Comparable sandstone examples are held by museums in Phnom Penh, Paris and northeast Thailand.[3] Two statues with faces identical to this one are in Bangkok and at the Musée Guimet in Paris.[1][2]
Jayavarman VII became king in 1181 and made Angkor Thom his new capital.[2] Angkor Database gives his reign as 1181 to 1218, and Cambodgemag gives 1178 to 1219.[3][4] His name was little known before 1903, and his reign is now known from inscriptions, Chinese court annals and works of art.[2] A Sanskrit inscription from Say Fong in Laos records his edict founding a hospital in 1186.[2] He built many temples, including Ta Prohm in 1186, Preah Khan in 1191, the Bayon at the end of his reign, and Banteay Chhmar.[1] He also founded 102 hospitals and 121 rest houses along roads, about one every 15 kilometers (9 miles).[1]
Provenance
The statue's modern archaeological history began in 1924, when six sandstone parts were found near the northern gate of Angkor Thom at Krol Romeas.[3] A matching head was located near the Gate of the Dead in 1931, after which the pieces were reunited.[3] The reunited statue entered the Phnom Penh museum by the end of 1934.[3] It was first rebuilt without arms.[3]
The sculpture underwent six months of restoration in 1998 under the supervision of Bertrand Porte, a French stone expert of the French School of the Far East (EFEO), and Khmer specialists.[3] Its renovated presentation was inaugurated during Cambodia's first National Cultural Day in April 1999, overseen by the King and Queen Mother.[3] In late 2019, experts matched arm and hand fragments from the Angkor Conservation depot in Siem Reap to the torso in Phnom Penh. The match clarified the statue's original gesture after the arms had long been considered missing.[3] The sculpture is currently on display at the National Museum of Cambodia.[3]
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 National Museum of Cambodia
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 National Museum of Cambodia, JAYAVARAMAN VII - National Museum of Cambodia
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 Angkor Database, King Jayavarman VII in Angkor Thom
- ↑ Cambodgemag, Jayavarman VII: The Savior King of the Khmer Empire (2026-02-03)