Banteay Chhmar protects thousands of square meters of historical carvings, like this scene showing traitors executed during a rebellion.

Banteay Chhmar, Cambodia — The remote Khmer temple of Banteay Chhmar is one of the most intriguing ancient shrines in Cambodia because much of the site remains hidden, 800 years after it was built. This includes thousands of square feet of detailed bas-relief carvings that remains buried, unseen since the stone walls collapses centuries ago.

The Cambodian government is working to have Banteay Chhmar listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, like the Angkor Heritage Park and the Khmer temple of Preah Vihear. Three partners supporting the efforts of the government and local authorities are the Global Heritage Fund (GHF), Community Based Tourism (CBT) and Heritage Watch International.

Andrew Marino, an educator with extensive Asian experience, is now working for Heritage Watch International teaching English to CBT workers at the site. He also maintains the Visit Banteay Chhmar website and posted these two videos produced by Agir Pour le Cambodge and Global Heritage Fund respectively. The films give viewers worldwide a chance to experience this unique and remote temple, as well as understanding more about the restoration and community development efforts underway.

Banteay Chhmar Community Based Tourism

The legendary history of Banteay Chhmar and a look at how the local community-based tourism (CBT) group is beginning to offer temple tours, homestays and educational activities including traditional music, silk weaving, bird watching etc. Originally supported by Agir Pour le Cambodge (APLC) the CBT is now supported by Global Heritage Fund (GHF) which is conserving the temple.

Global Heritage Fund at Banteay Chhmar

An overview of the Global Heritage Fund’s (GHF) conservation project of the Banteay Chhmar Temple in Banteay Chhmar, Cambodia. The 12th century Angkorian temple bears startling bas-reliefs of Angkorian-era life and Bayon-style face towers similar to those found at Bayon Temple, near Angkor Wat.

RELATED Banteay Chhmar LINKS

Banteay Chhmar 1937 – George Groslier’s 1937 account of this ancient Khmer City

Banteay Chhmar – Working to Save Another Angkor Wat

Global Heritage Fund

Heritage Watch International

By Darryl Collins - Independent Scholar
Reprinted with the permission of UDAYA – Journal of Khmer Studies

Banteay Chhmar, CAMBODIA — In early March 1924, an automobile entourage had already passed through Battambang, Mongkol Borei and Sisophon before arriving at Banteay Chhmar. Photographs – possibly taken by George Groslier [footnotes at bottom - i] (1887-1945) himself, of governors’ residences, schools, a post office [ii] and court witness their passage en route to Banteay Chhmar.

School, teacher & students at Sisophon in 1924. © National Museum of Cambodia

However, it is most likely the photograph of the arrival of the motorcade on the 9 March 1924 was restaged for posterity (top photo) as a wooden glass-plate camera and tripod would almost certainly have travelled as part of the on-board luggage. Presumably the camera was positioned, and either a mechanical timer used, or someone on hand recorded this event. Parts of a glass-plate camera (possibly equipment used by Groslier), remain in the collection of the National Museum of Cambodia (below).

Incomplete glass-plate camera (equipment possibly used by George Groslier) Collection: National Museum of Cambodia

A hand-written caption under the image states ‘Arrivée à Banteai Chhmar des premières automobiles parvenues au temple’: stamped and dated ‘Mars 1924’, is further registered as ‘H181; Dim (Sunday) 9-3-1924’.

The cars display numbered licence plates: P.P.466 (rear vehicle) and P.P.72 (front vehicle). [iii] A car expert has suggested that

“the PP466 car looks to be very similar to an early 1900-29 Renault (Frenchmade); the identifying feature being the unusual engine bonnet, which had the radiator behind the engine on the firewall, rather than up front behind the grill. However, I have found other French manufacturers La Buire and Clement-Bayard also used this design around this time.”

Further, “on a second look at these cars I noticed that the car nearest to the camera has solid steel wheels which dates this car closer to 1924, the other with wire spokes, probably a little earlier.” [iv]

Illustrated advertisement: Sociéte des Transports et Messageries d’Indochine: Phnom Penh-Saigon: Auto-cars voyageurs. 1928.

Advertisements for auto-cars (1928 & 1930) include maps depicting routes ex Phnom Penh via Sisophon across the Siamese border to the rail-head at Aranyaprathet. The trip in 1924 would have been a hot and arduous one, as the temple lies some 60km from Sisophon, and even today can only be reached by an uneven dirt road.

Illustrated advertisement: Sociéte des Transports et Messageries d’Indochine: Phnom Penh-Saigon: Auto-cars voyageurs, 1930.

Personages in the Banteay Chhmar arrival photograph remain a mystery; of the eight figures in the two cars, five are almost certainly Cambodians (interpreters, guides and drivers); only three appear to be Caucasian – one in the rear car and two seated in the front car, turning to face the camera. Assuming the cars departed from Phnom Penh, together with the photographic evidence and museum interests at heart, one of the foreigners in the picture must be George Groslier.

A fourth foreign figure leaning on a walking stick, stands poised as if to welcome the group (was he resident and already working at the temple)? The sturdy wooden thatched pavilion in front of the vehicles surrounded by a fence with a decorative gate certainly lends an air of permanence to the site. Set in the dry, freshly leveled earth are three sandstone heads (deva) with newly planted native vegetation to provide a suggestion of a garden path approach to the sala (open air structure). The stone heads would have originated from the figures of gods and demons grasping the serpent Vasuki that originally flanked one of the causeways to the temple compound.

The only other witnesses to this event are three shadowy figures of curious local Khmer (to the left of the vehicles) and one solitary figure under a small thatch hut to the right, viewing the arrival of the motorcade. The comparatively short shadows under the cars suggest an early afternoon arrival.

Governor’s residence, Sisophon, 1924. © National Museum of Cambodia

George Groslier prophetically wrote in 1924, “The collection of photographs owned by the Musée Albert Sarraut is of inestimable value. Fortunate acquisitions allowed us to gather documentation over the last 30 years or so. Most of the images are purely documentary. The conditions under which some of them were taken and the difficulties associated with their conservation in Indochina, has resulted in some low contrast prints, however, they are of sufficient quality for study.”[v]

School, teacher & students, Mongkol Borei. © National Museum of Cambodia

Although photographs of the Banteay Chhmar complex were taken as early as 1914, [vi] ten years later in 1924, [vii] and again in 1932, [viii] Groslier was not to write of the temple until some four years after in his 1936 article “Troisième recherche sur les Cambodgiens” [ix], followed the next year by “Banteai Chhmar, ville ancienne du Cambodge.” [x]

Courthouse, Sisophon, 1924. © National Museum of Cambodia

George Groslier’s son, Bernard Philippe Groslier, writing of his father, headed the tribute: ‘George Groslier, French painter, writer and archaeologist: 4 February 1887-18 June 1945 (Phnom Penh, Cambodge).’ [xi]

In addition, could be added the terms ‘museologist’ and ‘photographer,’ for as the founding director of what is now the National Museum of Cambodia, the cataloguing and documenting of his milieu and the growing collection of masterpieces of Khmer art for public display, is arguably his greatest legacy.

References cited

Anon., undated catalogue: Musée A. Sarraut: Service Photographique: Inventaire des Clichés, National Museum of Cambodia.

Groslier, George, Hanoi, 1924. Catalogue Général du Musée du Cambodge (Musée Albert Sarraut).

Groslier, George, ‘Troisième recherche sur les Cambodgiens’, BEFEO XXXV : 159-206.

Groslier, George, Paris, 1937. ‘Bantéai Chhmar, ville ancienne du Cambodge’, L’Illustration, 3 April, no. 4909.

Various contributors, Paris, 1992. Disciplines Croisées : Hommage à Bernard Philippe Groslier, Editions de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Direction générale de la Coopération culturelle, scientifique et technique.

Footnotes

[ii] The post office at Svay Sisophon was originally among a number of telegraphic and postal services handed over by Siam to the French colonial administration at the time of retrocession of the provinces of Battambang, Sisophon and Siem Reap in 1907.

[iii] P.P. presumably standing for Phnom Penh; these vehicles were most likely rented for the occasion; automobile taxi services commence operations slightly later in Phnom Penh on 1 May 1925.

[iv] Quotes courtesy Gordon McPherson, vintage car enthusiast, Adelaide, South Australia.

[v] Groslier 1924.

[vi] ibid., nos. 670-716.

[vii] Anon., undated catalogue, National Museum of Cambodia, L43-55; P57-63; R99-102.

[viii] ibid., L86-133.

[ix] Groslier 1936.

[x] Groslier 1937: 352-357

[xi] Various contributors 1992: 59.

Banteay Chhmar government building, 1924. © National Museum of Cambodia

About UDAYA – Journal of Khmer Studies

Udaya is the leading scholarly journal of Khmer culture and art. Since 2005, Friends of Khmer Culture has sponsored production of the journal, edited by .

The Sanskrit word udaya means “rising sun”. The UDAYA Journal also represents a dawn and rebirth for the reemergence of Khmer scholarship after decades of civil unrest in Cambodia. The journal includes articles from leading experts on both the cultural past of Cambodia as well as modern ideas about the evolution of Khmer society.

Udaya is an annual publication with articles in Khmer, English and French. For PDF information and a Table of Contents from each issue,  click the following links:  Issue I, 2000; Issue II, 2001; Issue III, 2002; Issue IV, 2003; Issue V, 2004; Issue VI, 2005; Issue VII, 2006; Issue VIII, 2007; Issue IX, 2008

For info on subscriptions or single issue purchases please email udaya@khmerculture.net.

One of eight Lokesvara images originally carved on the temple walls of Banteay Chhmar. Four of these were looted in 1992 (see missing wall on right). The Global Heritage Fund and other agencies (see links below) are now actively preserving and restoring the historic temple.

Banteay Chhmar Information Resources

Global Heritage Fund

Heritage Watch International

Cambodia Community Based Eco-Tourism Network

Banteay Chhmar Heritage Conference Website

Archaeological Institute of America – Banteay Chhmar Site Preservation Grant

Article – Banteay Chhmar: healing the scars of looting

Article – Banteay Chhmar – Ancient Khmer City in Cambodia (1933 article)

3D Architectural reconstruction of Banteay Chhmar by Dr. Pheakday Nguonphan.

Article by Kent Davis – Devata.org

PARIS, FRANCE – The majestic temple of Angkor Wat is an icon of the medieval Khmer civilization that once flourished in Southeast Asia. But situated 110 kilometers northwest of the well-known Angkor group, experts believe another fabulous monument also holds vital clues to the mysteries of the Khmer Empire. At the behest of the Global Heritage Fund, experts recently gathered at the Guimet Museum to insure the future of the temple of Banteay Chhmar.

One of eight Lokesvara images originally carved on the temple walls of Banteay Chhmar. Four of these were looted in 1992 (see missing wall on right).

Banteay Chhmar, also called the Citadel of the Cats, lies hidden in a remote corner of Cambodia, shielded by the Dangrek Mountains to the north. Its isolated location is exactly why archaeologists and conservators are so enthusiastic about the site. In the 800 years since it was built, Banteay Chhmar has slowly collapsed, falling victim to ancient trees, invasive jungle foliage and modern looters.

But archaeologists know that the structural collapse has preserved many artistic elements, much like a time capsule. Banteay Chhmar temple remains the least-damaged repository of art commissioned by the Khmer Empire’s last great king, Jayavarman VII, who converted Cambodia to Buddhism, which remains the national religion today.

GHF conservation of the face towers at Banteay Chhmar.

Conserving Cambodian History at Banteay Chhmar

In 2007, the Global Heritage Fund (GHF) recognized the critical need for conservation, planning and protection at Banteay Chhmar. Working with Cambodian officials, GHF initiated a conservation project at the temple. British architect John Sanday, GHF’s Director for Asia and Pacific Programs, moved to the site to personally direct the work, and to oversee training for professional team of Khmer conservators to restore their nation’s priceless heritage.

GHF’s Banteay Chhmar project is the first temple restoration project led by a Khmer team.

The Cambodian government and conservation groups actively support GHF’s conservation efforts. Governor Oung Oeung of Banteay Meanchey Province and Director General Ok Sophon, Department of Heritage, Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts (MoCFA) recently hosted the second international Banteay Chhmar conference at the site, attracting nearly 200 participants.

In addition to GHF’s work stabilizing and preserving the temple structure, two other groups are working with local residents to promote social programs; Cambodia Community Based Eco-Tourism Network promotes eco-tourism, while Heritage Watch International implements heritage education programs for visitors, guides and local residents.

In addition to the main temple, the vast Banteay Chhmar site includes a large baray (ceremonial reservoir), canals and many smaller temples.

GHF Conference at Musée Guimet Rallies Support for Heritage Conservation

A Royal Cambodian Ballet dancer.

On November 30th, 2010 the Global Heritage Fund organized a special meeting at the Guimet Museum, which preserves one of the most extraordinary collections of Khmer art in the world.

Following a traditional dance blessing by member of the Royal Ballet of Cambodia, a group of distinguished speakers discussed the importance of saving global heritage for future generations. Presenters included Cambodian Ambassador to France, H.E. Mr. Uch Kiman; the U.S. Ambassador to UNESCO David Killion, and Jacques Gies, President of the Musée Guimet, who just had returned from Cambodia.

John Sanday presented his ongoing work restoring Banteay Chhmar with professional team of Khmer conservators. Banteay Chhnar is the first temple conservation project in Cambodia to be led by a Khmer team of professionals training their fellow Khmers. Mr. Sanday also described how local communities are essential to the site’s protection and development to ensure long-term success for the project.

Dr. Peter Sharrock from University of London SOAS presented intriguing research on the unique Khmer art and iconography of Banteay Chhmar that the GHF project is now revealing to the world. (more info below)

Banteay Chhmar is enclosed by a one kilometer carved bas-relief wall depicting the entire history of the Khmer kingdom.

UNESCO Recognition – The Next Key Step for Banteay Chhmar

In 1992, UNESCO has recognized the 400 sq. km. Angkor area as one of the world’s most important archaeological sites.

The vast site of Banteay Chhmar is now among Cambodia’s top-listed sites for nomination to UNESCO’s World Heritage List. This little-know and rarely visited area contains one of the great architectural masterpieces of Southeast Asia, and its main temple is one of the culminating monuments of the Khmer Kingdom’s epic Angkorian Period.

Suffering from 800 years of neglect, the towers, chambers and intricate bas relief carvings of the temple have slowly collapsed to the encroaching jungle, as well as suffering from aggressive looters. Banteay Chhmar is in critical need of a master plan, pro-active conservation and increased protection, which is the exact mission government and non-profit agencies now pursue.

Early Banteay Chhmar temple plan by George Groslier.

Exploring the History and Mystery of Banteay Chhmar

Always remote, Banteay Chhmar has attracted explorers for more than a century. Etienne Aymonier first visited the site around 1883 followed by Lunet de Lajonquière around 1903. According to French archaeologist George Groslier,

“both noted that of all the Khmer monuments that they had explored Banteay Chhmar was the most ruined, the largest, the most chaotic…and the most indecipherable.”

On January 9, 1914, Groslier returned to the site to make a detailed survey, where he wrote:

“It took me ten days of uninterrupted work, from dawn to dusk, to survey Banteay Chhmar. No other temple in Cambodia is so vast or lies in such ruin…nowhere else have I felt such deep emotion studying the stones on site and re-erecting them one by one on paper.”

Groslier continued documenting the site, with the first major article for the public appearing in French in 1937 (click for George Groslier’s Banteay Chhmar article in English).

Professor Sharrock of SOAS now notes that the consecration of Banteay Chhmar dates to 1216 CE. Sharrock, a specialist in the religious transformation under the reign of the last great Khmer King Jayavarman VII, sees this unrestored temple as perhaps the greatest and least-damaged repository of Buddhist iconography from that era. His hope is that it will tell scholars even more about the Khmer than the state temple of the Bayon, which is in the Angkor group.

According Sharrock, images at Banteay Chhmar contain strong evidence for a cult of the supreme tantric Buddhist deity Hevajra, with significant participation by female practitioners, women known as Yoginis. According to Sharrock’s research, Hevajra cults were widespread at the time, reaching their peak in what is now China in 1260 CE with the Chinese emperor Kublai Khan’s consecration to Hevajra. Jayavarman VII’s devotion to Hevajra was therefore not unusual, but it does reveal the extent that this new religion influenced Southeast Asian beliefs.

Meanwhile, the iconography in the central sanctuary of Banteay Chhmar suggests that Vajrasattva and Herukas may have been at the core of this royal tantric cult. A frieze on one of the temple’s characteristic face towers may portraying the whole body of the crowned 4-faced deity sitting in the face-towers themselves.

Architectural reconstruction of Banteay Chhmar by architect Olivier Cunin, funded by the Robert Kiln Charitable Trust (UK) via GHF.

Restoring an Architectural Wonder

GHF has also employed the talents of French architect Dr. Olivier Cunin in creating 3-D archaeological reconstructions of the Banteay Chhmar complex. Cunin collaborated with Japanese photographer Baku Saito in 2005 to issue “The Face Towers of Banteay Chmar”, documenting this extraordinary temple.

The Banteay Chhmar site is now open to visitors. Interested travelers can also support the non-profit Global Heritage Fund, Cambodia Community Based Eco-Tourism Network, and Heritage Watch International with tax deductible contributions.

GHF team doing a temporary reassembly of a vault at Banteay Chhmar.

Banteay Chhmar Information Resources

Global Heritage Fund

Heritage Watch International

Cambodia Community Based Eco-Tourism Network

Banteay Chhmar Heritage Conference Website

Archaeological Institute of America – Banteay Chhmar Site Preservation Grant

Article – Banteay Chhmar: healing the scars of looting

Article – Banteay Chhmar – Ancient Khmer City in Cambodia (1933 article)

"The Armies of Angkor: Military Structure and Weaponry of the Khmers" by Michel Jacq-Hergoualc'h

Michel Jacq-Hergoualc’h, Orchid Press, and Michael Smithies as translator of the original French edition, are all to be congratulated for the publication of this book with its intriguing subject. As Jean Boisselier points out in his Preface, the study of narrative bas-reliefs in the temples of Angkor have been of great importance for our understanding of a society that left behind such a limited number of written—or, more correctly, incised—records.

Today, as scholarship has advanced so substantially, it is all too easy, even for a less-than-casual visitor to Angkor, to fail to recognise how much has been deduced from approximately 1,200 inscriptions, many of which have little to do with the material life of the Angkorian period. It is in these circumstances that the importance of narrative bas-reliefs has long been recognised.

Lunet de Lajonquiere, whose fame rests on his having been responsible for mapping temple sites throughout Cambodia in the first two decades of the twentieth century, observed in 1911 that temple bas-reliefs constituted ‘a veritable mine of information’ about Angkorian society and urged scholars to exploit this ‘mine’. This was a challenge partially met by George Groslier, in his “Recherches sur les Cambodgiens, d’apres les textes et les monuments depuis les premiers siecles de notre ere”, published in Paris in 1921. And through his work, and that of others, much information has been assembled about daily life in Cambodia. The bas-reliefs along the outer galleries of the Bayon are, of course, the best-known sources in this regard.

Yet, again quoting Boisselier, surprisingly enough the armies so frequently displayed in these bas-reliefs have not received the attention they deserve, and it is here that our gratitude must go to the present author. In meticulous detail, and sensibly using line drawings rather than photographs for the greater clarity this achieves, he deals with the entire gamut of military aspects associated with the royal armies that existed during the reigns of Suryavarman II and Jayavarman VII and which were depicted on three key temples: Angkor Wat, the Bayon and Banteay Chhmar.

Armies of Angkor - Figure 29

In doing so, Michel Jacq-Hergoualc’h sets himself three aims: the selection of bas-reliefs and the study of the weapons used by the different constituents of the army; the study of these constituent parts and their relative importance to each other; and, finally, an examination of the crowds of people surrounding the armies that are depicted. All of this is done against the conclusion that, contrary to the assumptions of various previous commentators, the Khmer armies were not modelled on traditional armies in India.

In each of the sections just mentioned the author approaches his task in detail, so that what follows is greatly simplified and should be seen in this light. In terms of weaponry, Jacq-Hergoualc’h makes clear that, with the exception of a limited number of ‘war machines’, for example, a chariot-like mount with defensive shielding used by warriors to launch their spears (figure 29, page 37) or other primitive ‘ballistae’, including ones mounted on elephants, the armaments of the Khmer army were ‘fairly primitive’ and included swords of various types, axes, bows and arrows and spears.

From his examination of the bas-reliefs, the author concludes that the Khmer armies of the period under review were composed of four basic corps: war chariots, cavalry, elephants and the infantry. To this he adds a further classification, allies and mercenaries, while giving separate attention to enemies, and treating the use of boats for warfare as a separate classification. In his detailed examination of these various fighting arms the author comes to a conclusion that would not surprise soldiers of many wars, past and present. Impressive though the cavalry might have been, and intimidating as the elephants surely were, in the end it would seem that the most important role in any battle was that played by the group known for centuries, irreverently, as the ‘poor bloody infantry’.

As the author puts it, the elephants were ‘so impressive, so numerous, so cumbersome, and possibly so useless’. Images of tanks, incompetently used as they were during the First World War, before their role was rethought by strategists as diverse as Liddell Hart, Charles de Gaulle and Hans Guderian, immediately come to mind. And likewise with his analysis of battles fought on water, the images that he conjures up sit more closely with accounts of Salmis or even Lepanto than any later naval engagements in which armaments and manoeuvrability played a vital role. To the extent the bas-reliefs have a story to tell, it is of the boats of rival armies seeking to join battle alongside each other, with the hope of each boat’s crew that it could board and overcome its opponents.

Following his discussion of accessories and camp followers, the author offers a tightly formulated ‘conclusion’ reinforcing his arguments for the paramount importance of the infantry and the uniquely Khmer character of the army. But he does more, for he allows his imagination, soundly based on what he has written and analysed previously, to give us a picture of how he believes the army appeared as it marched off to battle. It is a vision of colour and noise, of a ‘shimmering multitude of parasols, standards and insignia’, of bells and strummed instruments and ‘the booming gong’. As he writes, ‘what a din that must have made!’

Specialist in character though this book undoubtedly is, its appearance will be welcomed by all those for whom a visit to Angkor is more than an occasion for a brief, if wondrous, excursion. The author is to be commended for his contribution to our greater understanding of a society that still remains so elusive in many ways.

Review by Milton Osborne

The Armies of Angkor: Military Structure and Weaponry of the Khmers by Michel Jacq-Hergoualc’h, translated from the French by Michael Smithies.

First English edition, 2007. 200 pp., 4 plans and 154 line drawings, bibliography, index, 24.5 x 17.5 cm., hardcover.

Dr. Milton Osborne

About the Reviewer

Milton OSBORNE is an independent scholar based in Sydney. He is also adjunct professor in the Faculty of Asian Studies at the Australian National University, Canberra, and the author of ten books on the history and politics of Southeast Asia including Phnom Penh: A Cultural History, which is nowavailable on Kindle as an instant download.

Acknowledgement

This review originally appeared in the Journal of the Siam Society, Volume 96. The Siam Society, based in Bangkok since 1904 and under Thai Royal Patronage, promotes knowledge of Thailand and the surrounding region, including many profound works relating to Khmer studies.

Devata.org thanks the reviewer and the the Siam Society for kindly allowing the reproduction of this article in our archive.

Special thanks to Nicole Groslier for providing original photos and for her kind permission to translate this draft of her father’s article, which later appeared in L’Illustration magazine, April 3, 1937. The translator assumes all responsibility for errors. Serious researchers should consult M. Groslier’s final article in the original French.

Banteay Meanchey, Cambodia - If one ventures to the north-western borders of Cambodia, one arrives in a region surrounded at right angles by the extreme western end of the Dangrek mountain chain. Beyond them lies Siam. Occupying 2 or 3,000 square kilometers, this area is nearly deserted. Consisting of soil made of clay and sand, crossed by some dry rivers six months of the year, it offers nothing to the traveler but uncultivated plains and sparsely wooded forests whose trees remain stunted due to fires that rage in the dry season.

Villages become increasingly rare, finally disappearing completely. In the summer, there is no game and torrid heat; in winter, the area is subjected to violent storms deflected by the mountains. This is the most desolate place in Cambodia. Still, however, ruins are found there; an imposing array of monuments from an ancient empire. Among these ruins is not only one of the largest Khmer temples that we know of (including those of the Angkor group), but also one of largest temples in the world. This temple is known as Banteay Chhmar.

What series of events inspired the builders eight centuries ago, at the height of Angkor’s power, to choose to settle in such a desolate region? And why did they later abandon the site that presents itself to us in the ruinous state that we now find it today? Here is one of the most intriguing puzzles in the history of Cambodia. We cannot address this issue here, but to understand the facts, it is helpful to know that the Khmers organized the places they inhabited bit by bit, and that their irrigation works, which we will examine in depth, made them livable and perhaps prosperous.

Banteay Chhmar temple plan.

Today, the temple of Banteay Chhmar is almost entirely collapsed. The two authors who previously published descriptions of it — Etienne Aymonier around 1883, then Lunet de Lajonquière around 1903 — both noted that of all the Khmer monuments that they had explored Banteay Chhmar was the most ruined, the largest, the most chaotic…and the most indecipherable.

In their summaries Aymonier and de Lajonquière also gave contradictory sketches and descriptions of many pages. This attracted us to reexamine this remote group of temples. We had to make four visits over the course of several years because the temple is only accessible for two months per year. After three campaigns, we still had not even been able to reach the foundations of the walls. Despite our efforts and best intentions we risked only adding to the questions, and augmenting the work of our predecessors by very little. It was then that Mr. George Cœdès, Director of the French School of the Far East (EFEO), helped us with appropriations to support our project. We were able to immediately dispatch a team of forty coolies who gave us fifteen days of labor. But their work was only enough to enable us to probe about a third of the essential areas inaccessible in our former research.

Banteay Chhmar's main temple (small grey square at left) is encircled by 8 secondary temples and a vast artificial reservoir with the Mebon temple built on an island in the center.

The second site plan that we present here introduces the identification of the temples and hydraulic works that remain from the ancient city. The “Baray” is a reservoir formed by a rectangular seawall, 3 meters high on average, that encloses an area of 1,276,450 square meters (1,526,621 sq. yards). Inside edges are entirely lined with laterite blocks, which gave easy access to the water. Originally a river, now dried out, fed this vast reservoir that also collected rain water.

Ruins of the boat landing terrace on the Baray. Excavations by the EFEO revealed carved lotus flowers and sacred geese with wings spread.

Close to the center, the Khmers created an artificial island where they constructed a “Mebon” temple (i.e. a temples situated in the center of a Baray). On the Baray’s west seawall, the Khmers built an embarkation terrace for boat traffic to the central temple (photo above). Its foundation stones, originally submerged in water, are sculpted with open-winged aquatic birds among lotuses. The dimensions of this architectural element, the style of its décor, its bold position, dominated by the imposing mirror of water and the sacred Mebon temple island, prove to us from our first steps the collective viewpoint and theatrical taste of the builders of Banteay Chhmar.

The central temple is entirely encircled by a rectangular moat 65 meters wide (213 feet) with a depth of 3.6 meters (11.8 feet). One crosses to the main temple by four axial causeways, each originally edged by balustrades consisting of two rows of stone giants and supporting a Naga parapet, an ornamental motif seen at the gates of Angkor Thom, as well as at Angkor’s Baray and its Mebon temple.

View of the south side of the moat surrounding Banteay Chhmar, with the causeway linking it to the mainland.

Before entering the boundaries of this huge temple, let us note that on its north-south and east-west axes are found seven satellite temples, with an eighth located near the southeast angle of the moat (see diagram above). These buildings, of secondary artistic interest because of the similarities among them, each include one or two surrounding walls, a tower with four faces forming a central shrine and a system of moats and basins, lined with stone banks like the Baray. On the 8 or 9 square kilometers covered by the Banteay Chhmar group, more than a sixth of the area was therefore excavated — sometimes up to depth of 6 meters (20 feet) — with the intention of creating reservoirs of water and, as a result, very clear liquid surfaces to complement the architecture.

South exterior gallery of Banteay Chhmar's main temple. These galleries originally surrounded the temple covering nearly 700 meters of bas relief carvings of Khmer life.

Here, in a few words, are the main guiding principles of the plan: all galleries and colonnaded walkways join together or cross in right angles. The majority of these junctions feature a tower shrine, tapering towards the center with four faces in some areas of the temple (the same type of the towers seen in The Bayon of Angkor Thom). As they approached the central shrine, the towers increases. From 6-7 meters (20-23 feet) tall at the periphery, they attained a height of about 20 meters (66 feet) in the center. In total, there were 56 towers.

One of the courtyards of Banteay Chhmar leading to the central labyrinth.

The two main axes of this group are clear at first glance. The point where they intersect is occupied by the central shrine, the Holy of Holies. Thus the architectural center and ritual center of the temple coincide. By passing through the temple from East to West, one encounters six distinct sections, each closely dependent on the others:

1 – A rectangular gallery enclosing the entire temple measuring 250 meters by 190 meters (820 x 623 feet). This consists of an arch roof built against a wall supported by pillars on the outside edge. The outside face of the covered wall features bas-relief carvings that, in their entirety, cover an area of 1,090 square meters (11,733 sq. feet). The interpretation of the historical and legendary stages pictured on the bas-reliefs is still impossible. Each side of the gallery is penetrated at the central axis by a monumental door with triple entry passages and three towers. One reaches these entry gates by crossing a Terrace of Honor, lined with Naga parapets and staircases flanked by lions (only the eastern terrace is shown on our plan);

2 - A rectangular gallery surrounding a courtyard, which is occupied by a crucial gallery. This beautifully proportioned building was, originally, independent of the temple itself. To the north and south it is associated with two water basins with steps and two additional buildings set upon 4 meter (13 feet) tall foundations. These are flanked by 1.7 meter (5.6 feet) tall standing monsters that act as caryatids;

3 - The main section of the temple. This “checkerboard” of galleries divides itself into three complexes that connect, one to another, from east to west, as three complete temples joined end to end. Each includes, in effect, a central tower sanctuary preceded by an entry pavilion, with towers and ceremonial gates set to the north and south. These sections are simultaneously united and independent;

As one advances west, the composition tightens; the towers and entry pavilions multiply as one reaches the principal sanctuary. Then one emerges in an open air courtyard that is mostly occupied by a group of three isolated towers. This transition achieves a remarkable contrast. These provisions obviously correspond to religious constraints imposed on the architects by the multiple divinities who were worshipped in this immense temple. The problem to be solved was therefore made much more difficult.

Also, from an architectural viewpoint, it is of great interest to follow diversity of the plan, despite the repetition of similar motifs that can be deduced within. This long rectangular area of 40 meters (131 feet) wide by 170 meters (558 feet) from east to west is divided by rows of towers — sometimes three, sometimes five, sometimes on elevated foundations and sometimes with four divine faces — joined end to end without a gap, leaving no doubt in one’s mind that no section of the system of axes that govern the design was neglected. NOTE: It is this aspect that, not escaping the eye of Cambodians, inspired the modern name of the temple: Banteay Chhmar which means “narrow citadel”;

4 and 5 - To the north and south, the temple’s main section is flanked by two similar groups that are symmetrical and independent of the main structure. Both of these two shrines are topped with face towers and encircled with a rectangular gallery;

6 - Finally, completing in the west, we find the same composition style as both precedents. But, here, the central shrine is built on a foundation 3.7 meters (12 feet) high, decorated with moldings and serrated designs, flanked by staircases on all four sides. This design is different from the rest of the temple which is strictly level, the highest foundation previously encountered not exceeding 80 centimeters (31.5 inches) above the base.

Interior structure of Banteay Chhmar's crucial gallery: winged women with arms raised holding lotus blossoms.

Banteay Chhmar’s plan differs considerably from most of the great Khmer temples now known. Usually, these plans are concentric and consequently develop with similar dimensions based on the four cardinal points. Generally, secondary buildings, or those added at later times, were more haphazard and without symmetry. Here, as we’ve just seen, the group is radically opposite these other designs.

The plan is eccentric, developing from east to west, in a series of successive structures that never break their rigorous symmetry. The surrounding gallery enclosure, like that of traditional temples (but here it is independent), is penetrated, but the architect neglects the north, south and west entries of the central group, even masking them with independent sanctuaries.

The bird-god Garuda combined with the multi-headed serpent Naga decorates the balastrades of the terraces.

If the builders first undertook a rigorous staking of their construction sites, the disparity among almost all the Khmer monuments is that the lines of the architect are often remarkable, but the construction itself is often mediocre; this also exists at Banteay Chhmar, one of the largest of all their temples.

One of the innumerable devata nymphs who appear on the walls of Banteay Chhmar.

Given the technique of shaping the stones and stacking them one on top of the other, it was necessary to create axes 7 meters apart for three lines of towers, so there were surprises. After all was said and done, this vast monument, perfectly composed in every section by the architects, was built “approximately” and as well as the circumstances allowed.

Despite these mistakes that the workforce was powerless to change, they compensated with true will, true intelligence and a boldness that made it certain that they could accomplish building the main temple of Banteay Chhmar. Its horizontal development on a single axis precluded it from creating a massive impression as a group, but as the Khmers experienced it, proceeding through each impressive section, the small defects that we have just noted disappeared.

One of the towers with four divine faces at Banteay Chhmar.

The 5-6,000 measurements we took of these ruins have us allowed us to calculate the cubic volume and carved surfaces. We met too many unknown factors in our research to calculate the total time spent in the construction and decoration of Banteay Chhmar. However, we were able to determine the minimum time required for such a project by determining the maximum number of workers the site could accommodate. The final answer was about sixty years, provided that there was no interruption of work.

Goddess from the Buddhist pantheon at Banteay Chhmar.

On the other hand, inscriptions discovered from of the reign of Jayavarman VII (1180-1201 AD) indicate that the large temple was already finished at that time. One can therefore postulate that the ancient city of Banteay Chhmar was a prosperous religious center during the twelfth century, and that construction of the central complex of this temple was begun by about 1140 AD at the latest. As for the religion practiced there, the most anyone can say is that there was Vishnuism at the beginning. The temple later appears to have been affected by Buddhism, at least in its most recent sections. In any case, its iconography belongs to these two religions.

Banteay Chhmar lintel.

George Groslier and his daughter Nicole at the gate of their Phnom Penh home - 1923.

George Groslier (1887-1945) lived, breathed and loved the art and culture of his country of birth: Cambodia.

His work as an historian, curator, educator and author was the motivating force behind much of the revival of interest in traditional Cambodian arts and crafts. He produced a large body of research and, in 1926, began adding fictional works to his oeuvre, depicting Europeans in the context of the exotic Far East.

For a complete list of George Groslier’s work please visit CambodianDancers.com

Special thanks to Nicole Groslier for her kind permission to use her original photos and for allowing Kent Davis to translate this draft of her father’s article, which later appeared in L’Illustration magazine, April 3, 1937.

Sacred female image from Chao Say Tevoda

From the 8th-14th centuries, the Khmer civilization unified most of Southeast Asia, implementing systems of government, religion, education, agriculture and architecture that still color the region today.

Khmer nobility and peasants alike chose to live in homes of wood, bamboo and thatch as they reserved the more permanent materials of stone and brick only for temples to their gods. Today, thousands of their religious structures still dot the landscape of Cambodia and Thailand, offering us clues to understanding the amazing people who built them.

The best photo index of Khmer temples in Cambodia and Thailand is available free thanks to the efforts of “Khmersearch,” a skilled (and generous) German photographer. Panoramio hosts his high resolution photo collection of  ancient Khmer temples, hospitals, dharmasalas, ruins and water features. Each photo is geographically located using Google Earth.

I found this extensive collection while researching the obscure temples of Prasat Mebon and Prasat Toap near Banteay Chhmar. In fact, many of the structures featured are virtually unvisited sites that are difficult to find, making this online resource especially unique.

Note that his photo collection offers only visual verification of the sites and does not include historical details.

We at Devata.org express our gratitude to Khmersearch for the time and effort devoted to creating this important record of Khmer history. The temple list below is organized by country (Cambodia and Thailand).

Temples featuring devata (sacred women) appear in green (note that devata are not necessarily included in Khmersearch images). Links to Devata.org photo sets and related devata articles appear in red.

Cambodia

“All Cambodia Sites”

Thailand

Review by Kent Davis  -  Purchase this book on Amazon

"The Armies of Angkor: Military Structure and Weaponry of the Khmers" by Michel Jacq-Hergoualc'h

Michel Jacq-Hergoualc’h's artistic and analytical milestone is a fascinating resource for Khmerophiles everywhere, as well as for readers interested in ancient warfare in general.

The only written records of the mysterious Khmer Empire to reach our times are temple inscriptions and the account of the 13th century Chinese traveler, Zhou Daguan (brilliantly translated to English by Peter Harris in 2007). Michel Jacq-Hergoualc’h, however, has drawn upon an entirely visual medium to learn more about this culture: the extensive bas relief illustrations on three key temples: Angkor Wat, the Bayon and Banteay Chmar.

These lavish depictions clearly show the royal armies of King Suryavarman II and King Jayavarman VII, the two ruling monarchs at the peak of the Khmer Empire in the 12th and 13th centuries. Years of painstaking photo analysis enabled the author to create a series of crisp, line art illustrations revealing an astounding range of equipment and decoration in the military ranks. The diversity, precision and beauty of these decorations are far beyond what one would expect.

Fig. 118 - Khmer admiral's vessel. Type 6. Banteay Chmar, E. Image from "Armies of Angkor"

The author draws from many expert predecessors, especially the work of George Groslier. But through his illustrations, this book offers images clearer than anyone has ever seen. This clarity, and his systematic renderings, allow Jacq-Hergoualc’h to make new deductions about the nature of ancient warfare in Southeast Asia.

Armies of Angkor Fig. 63. Headdresses of foot soldiers. Angkor Wat S. gallery, West wing.

The book immediately reminded me of another Orchid Press favorite; the first English translation of Sappho Marchal’s 1927 work, “Khmer Costumes and Ornaments of the Devatas of Angkor Wat”. While Marchal’s book offers a beautiful artistic study, Jacq-Hergoualc’h gives readers much more in terms of analysis and interpretation.

Armies of Angkor - Fig. 75. The Siamese chief. Angkor wat. S. gallery, West wing.

Visiting the temples of Angkor with this book in hand offers visitors an entirely new experience when examining the bas-relief carvings. Personally, I can’t wait to return to look for some of the subtleties (and oddities!) that have been brought to light. Although the author has created a substantive reference work, his book is written in plain language and is quite accessible. Michael Smithies delivers a brilliant translation from the original French, no small feat given the intricate descriptions contained within.

Armies of Angkor - Fig. 55. Elephant accessories. Angkor Wat. A, B, C, C. Bayon. E, F, G.

The bottom line is that this clear artwork, and the author’s explanations, make viewing the bas reliefs far easier, far more enlightening and far more entertaining than any other guidebook.

In closing, note that this Orchid Press book is beautifully produced. The Smyth hand-sewn hardcover volume was printed in Thailand. Its handsome dust jacket gives it a rich appearance and high quality coated stock makes the text and 158 illustrations exceptionally clear.  A great gift that will give much enjoyment for your favorite Cambodia-bound traveler, even if it’s for yourself!

Kent Davis is a US-based publisher, author and independent researcher specializing in Khmer studies with DatAsia, Inc. and Devata.org.