Heritage site
Phnom Bakheng
ប្រាសាទភ្នំបាខែង
Phnom Bakheng (ប្រាសាទភ្នំបាខែង) is a hilltop temple at Angkor, the state temple of King Yasovarman I at the center of his capital, Yasodharapura.[1][2][3] The hill stands between Angkor Wat and the south gate of Angkor Thom, about 1,300 meters (0.8 miles) north of the western entrance of Angkor Wat and 400 meters (1,300 feet) south of the gate.[3] Its height is given as 60 meters (197 feet)[3] or 65 meters (213 feet).[1] The temple is more than two centuries older than both of its neighbors.[1]
History
Yasovarman I came to the throne in 889.[3][4] He abandoned Hariharalaya, at Roluos on the plain, where the kings before him had ruled, in Glaize's account; Higham wrote that he virtually abandoned it.[3][4] He founded a new city around the hill,[3][4] 16 kilometers (10 miles)[1] or 18 kilometers (11 miles)[4] to the northwest. As earlier kings had done, he gave the capital his own name: Yasodharapura.[4] The city formed a square of about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) on each side, and a double earthen bank marked its southern edge.[3] It covered about half of the area that the later walls of Angkor Thom would surround, and its central temple stood far beyond them.[5] The name Yasodharapura passed on to the later capitals in the Angkor area.[5]
Dates given for the temple range from the end of the 9th century[1] and about 900[3] to 907.[6] Like other Khmer temple mountains, it stood for Mount Meru, the home of the Hindu gods.[4][5][1] Glaize wrote that Yasovarman saw Meru in the hill and the river Ganges in the Siem Reap River, which was probably turned to run along the new city's eastern edge.[3] Briggs wrote that the king straightened the river's course.[5] The temple sheltered the linga Yasodharesvara, the devaraja, which Glaize called the master idol of the kingdom.[3][5] The inscriptions speak of a "Central Mount" (Vnam Kantal) at the heart of the capital, and Victor Goloubew identified it with this hill.[7][1] The Sdak Kok Thom inscription (K. 235) names the temple Yashodharagiri.[1]
Yasovarman also crowned the two other hills of the plain with temples: Phnom Krom to the south, near the Tonle Sap, and Phnom Bok to the northeast.[3][1] An inscription on a door jamb of the temple, carved in the reign of Jayavarman V (968 to 1001), recalls Yasovarman's foundation.[3] Glaize wrote that around the 11th century, while Ta Keo, Phimeanakas and the Baphuon were under construction, the city's limits seem to have shifted a little to the north, and the hill ceased to be its center.[7] The north to south axis through Phimeanakas and the Baphuon runs straight to Phnom Bakheng, about 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) away; Giulio Magli judged the alignment deliberate.[6]
The temple
The temple is a stepped pyramid of five tiers[3][5][1] or six.[4] Glaize wrote that it is unique in having no core of fill: the builders cut the bedrock of the hill to shape and faced it with sandstone.[3] The tiers narrow from 76 meters (249 feet) at the base to 47 meters (154 feet) at the top and rise 13 meters (43 feet) in all. Steep stairways climb the center of each side, flanked by lions at each level.[3][5]
Five sandstone towers stand on the top platform in a quincunx, one at the center and one at each corner.[3][5][1] Glaize saw in this the first quincunx of sandstone towers set on top of a pyramid.[3] The central sanctuary, 8 meters (26 feet) square, opens on all four sides.[3] By 1944 the four corner towers, each 6 meters (20 feet) square, had been reduced to the bases of their walls.[3] Sixty small sandstone towers line the lower tiers and open to the east;[3][1] Hello Angkor puts them at 12 to a tier.[1] A ring of 44 brick towers surrounded the foot of the pyramid, set in a single row except beside the axial paths, where they stand in pairs on shared bases; many were missing or unfinished by 1944.[3] Glaize counted 109 towers in all,[3] while Hello Angkor says the shrines are believed to have numbered 108.[1]
Carved female divinities (devatas) stand on the corner piers of the sanctuaries, among bands of finely carved foliage.[3][1] A stone tank was taken from a well beneath the central tower; Cœdès thought it had a funerary use, perhaps holding the remains of the deified king.[3] Three of the four statues of Nandin, the bull that carries Shiva, were found at the foot of the pyramid.[3] Two sandstone buildings of the kind known as libraries stand to the east of the pyramid.[3][1] Stone lions guard the foot of the paths up the hill, and Glaize praised their proportions.[3][1]
Goloubew's excavations of 1931 to 1934 found a buried enclosure at the foot of the hill, 650 meters (2,130 feet) from east to west and 440 meters (1,440 feet) from north to south, with gateways on its axes.[3] The enclosure was once ringed by a moat, and a causeway led from its eastern entrance east and then southeast to the Indratataka reservoir and the temple of Lolei.[1] Glaize and Magli date Lolei to 893.[7][6]
Later history
Phnom Bakheng became a place of Buddhist worship after the Angkorian period, or perhaps before its end. Two inscriptions of the 16th century (K. 285 and K. 465) record the visit of a high priest who restored Buddha images there.[1] In the 17th century King Ramadhipati I (reigned 1642 to 1658), who had converted to Islam, set up a stele inscribed in Arabic at the site; Henri Parmentier found it in 1920.[1]
Monks later piled reused blocks from the temple on the summit to form the base of a huge seated Buddha image, whose torso was never finished.[3] The Arabic stele lay beneath this mass, and the work is believed to date from around the 17th or 18th century; a reclining Buddha image was also begun.[1] In the 19th century Buddhist monks from Vietnam lived on the summit and built a pagoda on its eastern side.[1][3] A small shelter near the eastern approach covers a footprint of the Buddha (Buddhapada).[3][1]
Clearing and restoration
Henri Marchal cleared the temple in stages from 1919 to 1930,[3] and Hello Angkor names Henri Parmentier as working with him in the 1920s.[1] When the mound of reused blocks on the summit was taken apart, the quincunx of towers was found beneath it.[3] Further work to stabilize the temple followed in 1959.[1]
The World Monuments Fund first came to Angkor on a field mission in 1989 and drew up recommendations for four sites, Phnom Bakheng among them.[2] Major restoration by the APSARA National Authority and the fund began in 2004, with large-scale funding from the United States government.[1] In June 2019 the fund and its partners marked the end of a decade of work on the eastern half of the pyramid and began work on the western half.[2] Michael Newbill, chargé d'affaires of the US Embassy in Cambodia, called the project "the largest Ambassador's fund project anywhere in the world".[2]
Visiting
Phnom Bakheng is a popular place to watch the sunrise and the sunset, with a view over the West Baray.[1] As of 2026, the site opens at 5 a.m. and closes at 7 p.m., and entry requires an Angkor Pass. A trail winds up the hill in about 20 minutes, and the temple is entered by its eastern stairway.[1]
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 1.18 1.19 1.20 1.21 1.22 1.23 1.24 1.25 1.26 1.27 Hello Angkor, Rodney Charles L'Huillier, Phnom Bakheng: The Mountain Top Pyramid, History and Highlights (updated January 1, 2026)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 World Monuments Fund, Major Milestones Reached at Angkor (June 11, 2019)
- ↑ 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 3.17 3.18 3.19 3.20 3.21 3.22 3.23 3.24 3.25 3.26 3.27 3.28 3.29 3.30 3.31 3.32 The Angkor Guide, Maurice Glaize, Phnom Bakheng, from The Monuments of the Angkor Group (1944; English translation)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 Proceedings of the British Academy, Charles F. W. Higham, The Origins of the Civilisation of Angkor (2003)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 The Far Eastern Quarterly, Lawrence Palmer Briggs, A Sketch of Cambodian History (August 1947)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Giulio Magli, Archaeoastronomy in the Khmer Heartland (arXiv, 2016)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Angkor Database, Maurice Glaize, The Monuments of the Angkor Group (1944; English translation of the fourth French edition)