Historical figure
Bernard-Philippe Groslier
Bernard-Philippe Groslier (1926 to 1986) was a French archaeologist who led the restoration of Angkor as its Conservator from 1960 to the early 1970s.[1][2] He is known for his studies of water management at Angkor, which presented it as a "hydraulic city".[3][2]
Early life and training
Groslier was born in Phnom Penh on May 10, 1926.[1][4] His father, George Groslier, founded the School of Cambodian Arts and the National Museum of Cambodia.[3] He went to secondary school in Clermont-Ferrand in France.[3] Moore writes that he was in the French Resistance from 1942 to 1944 and then served in the army until 1948.[1][4]
After the war he studied history at the Sorbonne and art history at the École du Louvre in Paris. He also took ethnology at the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE) and Khmer at the École des langues orientales.[3][1] He first dug on an excavation as a teenager, at the Gallic site of Gergovie in 1942.[3]
Early career
In 1950 he joined the French Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) as a trainee. In 1951 he became a member of the École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO).[3] He was first made curator of the Blanchard de la Brosse museum in Saigon, and he flew survey missions over Cambodia and the Mekong delta.[3] In 1952 and 1953 he excavated the royal palace of Angkor Thom, his first dig at Angkor.[3][1] He then traveled for research in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, India and Greece.[3][1]
His first books on Angkor for a general readership came out in 1956 and 1957.[3] With C. R. Boxer he published a study of 16th-century Portuguese and Spanish accounts of Angkor in 1958.[1][4]
Conservator of Angkor
In 1958 he moved to Siem Reap to survey the Roluos area. At the end of 1959 the EFEO named him its director of archaeological research and Conservator of Angkor.[3][1] Angkor Database calls him the last French Conservator of the Angkor monuments, from 1960 to 1975.[2]
His team took monuments apart stone by stone and rebuilt them on new foundations, a method called anastylosis.[1] The EFEO lists among this work the west causeway of Angkor Wat and the gallery with the Churning relief (1960 to 1970), and the Baphuon (1960 to 1971). It also lists Prasat Kravan (1961 to 1966) and the royal terraces (1968 to 1971).[3] Moore adds Thommanon and the western steps of Srah Srang, and work outside Angkor at Sambor Prei Kuk, Beng Mealea, Koh Ker and Banteay Chhmar.[1] From 1963 to 1966 he advised the government of Thailand on the rebuilding of Phimai.[1]
He also dug almost every year. At Srah Srang in 1963 and 1964 his team found a Khmer cemetery with more than 200 burials. In 1962 an aerial survey led him to a prehistoric site at Memot.[1][3]
Angkor Database writes that he was a childhood friend of King Norodom Sihanouk, and that he guided General de Gaulle around the temples on the French leader's 1967 visit.[2] Sihanouk's 1969 film Twilight takes its inspiration from Groslier's book Angkor, and its main character reads passages of the book aloud.[5] During the civil war of the early 1970s, it writes, he sheltered the families of the conservation workers; about 3,000 refugees were living in the temples at that time.[2] Moore writes that his chief worry in those years was for the workers and their families.[1]
Later work
In 1973 he had to leave Siem Reap for Thailand, and he went on to survey sites in Malaysia and Burma.[3][1] From 1976 to 1978 he directed the CNRS center for archaeological research, which moved to Valbonne in those years.[3][1]
The EFEO regards three articles he published from 1973 to 1979 on the historical geography of Cambodia as his main scholarly contribution.[3] The last of them, "La cité hydraulique angkorienne" (1979), argued that waterworks for farming were the base of the Angkorian empire's power.[1] The EFEO writes that this idea needs to be reviewed critically today, but that it still frames questions about how such civilizations rose and fell.[3]
In a 1984 lecture at the Sorbonne, quoted by Angkor Database, he said that foreigners had in effect taken the Khmer people's past from them, and that he had been the last of them at Angkor.[2] Pich Keo, who had worked with him before the war, became the first Cambodian Conservator of Angkor in 1980.[2]
He died in Paris on May 29, 1986.[1][4]
Works
- Angkor: hommes et pierres (1956)
- Angkor et le Cambodge au XVIe siècle d'après les sources portugaises et espagnoles (1958, with C. R. Boxer)
- Indochine, carrefour des arts (1961)
- Indochine (Archaeologia Mundi, 1966)
- "La cité hydraulique angkorienne" (1979)
Source: Moore's list of his publications and Karttunen.[1][4]
See also
- Henri Marchal
- Maurice Glaize
- Twilight (1969 film)
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 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 Elizabeth Moore, "Bernard Philippe Groslier, 1926-1986", Asian Perspectives 27(2), 1986-1987, pages 173-180 (copy on Angkor Database)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Angkor Database, Bernard Philippe Groslier (undated; read October 20, 2026)
- ↑ 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 3.16 Archives of the École française d'Extrême-Orient, Groslier, Bernard Philippe (1926-1986) (undated; read October 20, 2026; in French)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Klaus Karttunen, Persons of Indian Studies, "Groslier, Bernard-Philippe" (updated December 20, 2025; read October 20, 2026)
- ↑ Angkor Database, Crépuscule / Twilight (undated; read October 20, 2026)