Historical figure
Jean Commaille
Jean Commaille (born 1868) was the first conservator of Angkor for France's École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO).[1][2] He cleared Angkor Wat (អង្គរវត្ត) and the Bayon and wrote the first guide to the site.[3][1]
Early life
Commaille was born in Marseille in 1868.[1] The son of a soldier, he began school at the Prytanée de La Flèche, a military school, but gave up on entering Saint-Cyr.[3][2] He joined the Foreign Legion, which brought him to Indochina,[3] and in 1896 he was posted to the Cambodian militia.[2] His enlistment ran out in 1898; he remained in Cambodia, spoke Khmer well and took work as an accounting assistant.[2] He later moved into the civil service.[3]
First years with the EFEO
In 1900 Commaille joined the EFEO as its secretary-treasurer.[3] In Saigon he installed the school's little museum, and soon he was put in charge of a dig at Bassak.[3] Angkor Database places these Bassac ruins in Svay Rieng (ស្វាយរៀង) and dates the work to 1901 and 1902.[1] When the collections went to Hanoi, he helped carry and arrange them for the 1902 Exhibition.[3]
Debts then pushed him out of the EFEO in search of better pay; he managed the Schneider printing works for a while and went back to the civil service.[3]
Conservator of Angkor
Angkor came under the EFEO's watch in 1907, once Cambodia's northern provinces were handed back, and the school recalled Commaille to look after the Angkor group.[3] The EFEO's director formally named him first conservator in July 1908.[1][2] For close to eight years he made his home at Angkor, in a wooden house at the entrance to the Angkor Wat causeway, and sent monthly reports on the work to Hanoi.[3][1][2] He and Étienne Lunet de Lajonquière listed which conservation work at Angkor should come first.[2]
He started with Angkor Wat, a long and often tedious job of close to four years. The earth he cleared from the temple was used to rebuild its side avenues, together more than a kilometer long and about a meter high.[3] He then cleared the Bayon, a badly ruined and unstable building, without any collapse, and made large drawings of it; one of his sections is nearly 5 meters long.[3] After the Bayon he began on the Baphuon (ប្រាសាទបាពួន) and the Terrace of the Elephants.[3] He also cleared or excavated at Preah Pithu (ព្រះពិធូ) and Prasat Suor Prat.[1]
Around the Bayon he had thousands of scattered stone blocks piled in separate heaps. Working from these "Commaille heaps", the researcher Olivier Cunin later showed that the Bayon had originally carried at least eleven more face towers than the ones that stand.[1] In 1913 Commaille found a seated Buddha at the Bayon, which was shown at the Musée Albert Sarraut in Phnom Penh.[2]
In September 1909 he welcomed King Sisowath (ស៊ីសុវត្ថិ) to Angkor.[1] He spoke the local language fluently and never struggled to find workers.[3] Henri Marchal became the second conservator of Angkor in 1916.[2]
Writing and painting
Commaille wrote Les ruines de Bassac (Cambodge) for the EFEO's bulletin in 1902 and Notes sur la décoration cambodgienne in 1913.[3] In 1912 his Guide aux ruines d'Angkor, the first guide to the site, appeared.[3][1]
His first watercolors of Khmer temples date from the years after the Legion.[2] He left a large body of paintings, watercolors and sketches, and his original works are kept in the EFEO's collection.[1][2] Nadine André-Pallois, an art historian, described him as "a Sunday painter at Angkor",[2] and Angkor Database places him among the last of what the historian Pierre Singaravelou called the amateur orientalists.[1]
References 3
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 Angkor Database, Jean Commaille (undated)
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 Lepetitjournal Cambodge, Jean Commaille, la vie du premier conservateur d'Angkor (February 22, 2026, updated April 30, 2026; in French)
- ↑ 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 Henri Parmentier, "Jean Commaille (1868-1916)", Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient 16 (1916), pp. 105-107, via Angkor Database (in French)
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