Heritage site
Chau Say Tevoda
Chau Say Tevoda is a small Hindu temple at Angkor, just outside the Victory Gate of Angkor Thom.[1] It stands across the road from Thommanon, a temple of nearly the same plan.[1] It was the first temple at Angkor that China helped restore, in a project that ran from 1998 to 2008.[2][3]
History
Maurice Glaize, conservator of Angkor from 1936 to 1946, wrote in 1944 that Chau Say Tevoda and Thommanon had not been dated with any precision, and that their style appears to place them after the Baphuon and before Angkor Wat, in the late 11th century or the first half of the 12th.[1][4] His table of the monuments in order of date puts the temple at the end of the 11th century or in the first half of the 12th.[4] Giulio Magli's table of the main Angkor monuments assigns it, with Thommanon, Banteay Samre and Angkor Wat, to the reign of Suryavarman II (1113 to 1145).[5]
Glaize saw the same layout in the central part of Beng Mealea and in Banteay Samre, temples of about the same age.[1][6] The temple was built for Brahmanic, or Hindu, worship.[1] Henri Marchal, who succeeded Jean Commaille as conservator of Angkor in 1916, cleared Thommanon and Chau Say Tevoda in 1919 and 1920 and again from 1925 to 1927.[1][4]
The temple
Chau Say Tevoda lies a little under 500 meters (1,640 feet) beyond the Victory Gate, on the right of the road of the Small Circuit, with Thommanon on the left.[1] Its plan follows Thommanon's: a sanctuary tower opening east onto a long hall. Chau Say Tevoda has four gateways, one on each side, where Thommanon has two, and two small buildings that Glaize called libraries, where Thommanon has one.[1] The sanctuary room is 2.8 meters (9.2 feet) square, and the long hall measures 6.8 by 3.6 meters (22 by 12 feet).[1] A walkway raised on three rows of columns joins the hall to the eastern gateway. From that gateway a paved way, raised on three rows of eight-sided supports added after the temple was built, led east to a terrace on the river.[1]
Glaize described the temple in 1944 as more ruined than Thommanon, with many fine pieces of carved stone lying around it.[1] Of the enclosure wall, 40 by 50 meters (131 by 164 feet), only the molded laterite base was left. The north and south gateways and the libraries had fallen almost to their bases, and the western gateway kept only its central part. Of the sanctuary tower's four upper tiers, three survived in part, and the vault of the long hall had collapsed.[1] Glaize wrote that, as elsewhere in the monument, the double wooden beams set into the masonry had caused it to collapse.[1]
Carving
The carving covers nearly every open surface of the temple. Glaize judged it less architectural than the carving at Thommanon but no less fine, with livelier devatas (female divine figures), false doors filled with scrolling foliage, and bands of foliage with small figures.[1] The walls of the hall and of the passage to the sanctuary are carved with rosettes set in squares, a pattern also found at Banteay Srei and the Baphuon.[1]
The pediments, the carved triangular panels over the doors, were badly damaged by 1944. Scenes of Shiva and of Vishnu alternate across the temple, and at least two pediments show stories from the Ramayana, among them the fight between Sugriva and Valin. Among the pediments rebuilt on the ground to the south is one of Shiva and Uma riding the bull Nandin.[1] A statue of Nandin, Shiva's mount, was found south of the northern library.[1][4]
Restoration
In 1996 China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage sent a team to inspect Angkor, and in 1997 it chose Chau Say Tevoda for conservation and research by the body later named the Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage.[7] The Angkor Database dates the start of protection and research work to 1998 and the formal launch of the restoration to March 29, 2000, under the supervision of the APSARA National Authority.[7] Xinhua dates the project from 1998,[2] and People's Daily writes that the renovation began in 2000.[3] The academy describes the work as its first conservation project in Cambodia and the first large international heritage project in which the Chinese government took part.[7]
The team recovered over 4,000 stones and pieces of stone from around the site. Where the old stone had decayed too far, they sometimes used newly cut blocks, a method criticized at the time but judged necessary.[7] People's Daily wrote that European restorers had doubted the team's ability at first, because older Chinese buildings were mostly of wood rather than stone.[3] The work was completed in 2008.[7][3][2] Chai Xiaoming, president of the academy, said the project had earned "high praise" from Cambodia's government and from international bodies.[3] The team then moved on to Ta Keo, which it restored as China's second project at Angkor; the Angkor Database dates that work from 2008 to 2018,[7] and Xinhua says the Ta Keo work took eight years.[2]
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 Maurice Glaize, The Angkor Guide, Thommanon and Chau Say Tevoda (1944; English online edition)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Xinhua, Mao Pengfei and Nguon Sovan, Ta Keo temple at Angkor comes alive by fusion of Chinese, Cambodian expertise (January 30, 2019)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 People's Daily Online, China assists foreign countries with relics restoration (July 16, 2019)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Angkor Database, Maurice Glaize, The Monuments of the Angkor Group (1944; English translation of the fourth French edition)
- ↑ arXiv, Giulio Magli, Archaeoastronomy in the Khmer Heartland (2016)
- ↑ Maurice Glaize, The Angkor Guide, Beng Mealea (1944; English online edition)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 Angkor Database, The Chau Say Tevoda and Ta Keo Restoration Projects, from the Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage (undated)