Heritage site

Preah Khan Kampong Svay

ព្រះខ័ននៅកំពង់ស្វាយ

Preah Khan Kampong Svay (ព្រះខ័ននៅកំពង់ស្វាយ) is a large Angkorian temple complex in Preah Vihear Province, Cambodia, begun in the 11th century.[1][2] Its original name, Bakan, refers to a high tower or citadel.[3] It lies almost 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of Angkor Wat, and is a different temple from the Preah Khan at Angkor.[4][5]

History

The complex was built under three kings: Suryavarman I (1011 to 1050), Suryavarman II (1113 to 1150) and Jayavarman VII (1181 to 1215).[3] Only one dated inscription has been found there, at Prasat Kat Kdei, from 1010; from it the researcher Giulio Magli suggests that the site was founded in the 11th century by Suryavarman I.[6] The main sanctuary and the outer enclosure are thought to date from his reign, and the second enclosure from the time of Suryavarman II. The third enclosure, the completion of the fourth and the baray, or great reservoir, are credited to Jayavarman VII.[3] Lonely Planet dates some structures to the ninth century.[7]

The scholar B. P. Groslier suggested that the complex was an eastern outpost of Angkor during the Khmer wars with the Cham in the 12th century. The archaeologist Mitch Hendrickson and his colleagues think this very unlikely, since the heart of the Cham lands lay more than 500 kilometers (310 miles) away. They read the lack of village temples, mounds and ponds beyond its walls as a sign that it was an outpost, not a central place in a wider Khmer landscape.[8] Mitch Hendrickson and Damian Evans found signs of activity in the early to mid-11th century, more in the early 12th century and again later that century, and occupation and industry until at least the 17th century.[4]

Iron smelting at Boeng Kroam in the early 15th century, as Angkor lost its place as the political center, points to iron workers reusing parts of the site after its main occupation, between the 11th and 13th centuries.[8]

French expeditions of the 19th century, among them Louis Delaporte's, first documented the site. Notes by Croizier, published in 1875, describe art and statuary carried away on an industrial scale, with more than 100 local workers, ox carts and rafts, and much of it is in the Musée Guimet in Paris.[4] With the help of aerial surveys by Terrasson and Victor Goloubew, Henri Mauger published the first complete map of its inner structure in 1939.[8] In 2015 Mitch Hendrickson and Damian Evans published the first comprehensive archaeological map of the site.[4]

Many artifacts and reliefs were stolen in the 1970s and 1980s.[2] In the mid-1990s the central structure was still in fairly good condition. In the second half of the 1990s, looters searching for statues under the towers damaged many structures and caused many towers to fall.[1][7] The central shrine has mostly collapsed.[4]

Architecture and layout

A ruined sandstone sanctuary with fallen blocks piled in front, among trees.
Remains of the central sanctuary of Preah Khan Kampong Svay, Preah Vihear province, 2012. Photo: Saxula, CC BY-SA 3.0

The complex stands in Sangkum Thmei commune.[3] Sources place it about 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of Angkor (Wikipedia), about 105 kilometers (65 miles) east (UNESCO) and about 50 miles (80 kilometers) east (Archaeology Magazine).[1][3][2] Four concentric enclosure walls surround temples of brick, laterite and sandstone.[2][9] Laterite is a red, iron-rich building stone.

Figures for its size differ. Hendrickson and his colleagues give the enclosure complex as 23 square kilometers (8.9 square miles), the largest in mainland Southeast Asia.[8] UNESCO gives the fourth enclosure as about 5,000 by 5,000 meters (3.1 by 3.1 miles), with a triple bank and double moat.[3] German Wikipedia gives each side of the outer enclosure as more than four kilometers (2.5 miles), and Lonely Planet gives the complex as almost 5 square kilometers (1.9 square miles).[5][7] Almost all the temples, enclosures and barays of Angkor and Roluos face the cardinal directions, but this complex is turned about 27 to 30 degrees north of east.[6][8]

Three great waterworks served the complex: the moat of the fourth enclosure, the baray and the lake of Boeng Krom.[3] Wikipedia gives the baray as about 2.8 kilometers by 750 meters (1.7 miles by 2,460 feet), and UNESCO as about 600 by 3,000 meters (1,970 by 9,840 feet).[9][3] Boeng Krom, also called Boeng Sre, lies in the north of the compound between the third and fourth enclosures.[3]

Preah Thkol, also called the Mebon, is a sandstone temple on a cross-shaped plan with a central tower. It stands on an artificial island at the center of the baray.[9][3] Prasat Preah Stung is a sandstone temple whose central shrine has four smiling faces like those of the Bayon at Angkor Thom, with a terrace of carved three-headed hamsa on its east side.[4] Prasat Preah Damrei is a pyramid temple on the east bank of the baray, with elephant statues at the corners of its top terrace, like those at the East Mebon at Angkor.[3] Prasat Kuk, a fire shrine, stands within the complex.[10]

Two libraries once stood before the central shrine. The shrine and its four gopura, or gateway towers, are largely ruined.[4]

Art and inscriptions

A sandstone statue of a standing figure whose body is covered in tiny carved seated figures.
The radiating Lokeshvara from Preah Khan Kampong Svay, in the Musée Guimet, Paris, 2008.

The temple was a Mahayana Buddhist site linked to the idea of the pure land, a Buddha's realm of rebirth.[3] The five cosmic Buddhas, Vairochana, Ratnasambhava, Amoghasiddhi, Amitabha and Akshobhya, appear on lintels and other parts of the buildings.[3] Prasat Chaktomuk holds a standing Buddha image 9.5 meters (31 feet) high that faces the four directions. UNESCO calls it the only example of its kind left in Cambodia and a symbol of a god protecting the city.[3] At Prasat Preah Stung, Lonely Planet identifies the four faces as Avalokiteshvara.[7]

Each corner of the central tower has three tiers of carving. The upper tier shows a three-headed hamsa, or sacred goose, Garuda and a three-headed elephant, Airavata.[3] These motifs had not been found before in Khmer art. Other images include a lion striding forward and, at Prasat Damrei, an elephant with the feet of a Garuda.[3]

Sculptures from the site include a portrait head of Jayavarman VII in the Bayon style of the late 12th century, in the collection of the National Museum of Cambodia,[11] and a standing lion in the Musée Guimet.[4]

Iron and the Royal Road

From at least the 12th century, the complex was a way station on the eastbound Royal Road, which ran from Angkor Thom through Beng Mealea to Preah Khan Kampong Svay.[3] UNESCO names ten way-station temples along this road, among them Chou Say Tavoda, Thommanon, Banteay Samre and Beng Mealea.[3][12] Way-station temples and fire shrines stood about 15 kilometers (9 miles) apart along the road network. Bridges found east of the site suggest the road may have gone farther east.[10]

The complex was also a center of iron mining, smelting and working.[3] It lies about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Phnom Dek, whose name means "iron mountain," Cambodia's largest source of iron oxide.[2][1] Surveys have found about 18 places with traces of metalworking, mostly around Boeung Krom and between the outer enclosures.[3] Some scholars see the complex as an industrial city that supplied iron to Angkor.[3][12] Mitch Hendrickson credits part of its wealth to its place between the smelters of Phnom Dek and Angkor.[2]

The dates of smelting differ. Wikipedia gives the mid-13th century from the study of slag, after the complex was finished. Samples reported by Archaeology Magazine in 2020 place the start in the early 15th century.[1][2] The smelters of Phnom Dek were Kuay people. The Kuy, as UNESCO writes the name, still live around the complex and have a long tradition of making iron tools for Khmer kings.[2][3]

Significance and conservation

Wikipedia calls Preah Khan Kampong Svay the largest single religious complex built in the Angkorian era, and Lonely Planet the largest temple enclosure of that period.[1][7] The archaeologist Mitch Hendrickson has called it the largest construction the Khmer ever built, larger than Angkor Thom.[2] UNESCO presents it as a provincial city linked to Angkor by the Royal Road, where road, ironworks and temples fit together in one plan.[3]

The site was first proclaimed for Cambodia's Tentative List for World Heritage on September 1, 1992. The Permanent Delegation of Cambodia to UNESCO added it again, in the cultural category under criterion (ii), on March 27, 2020.[9][3]

Visiting

A wide expanse of water covered with lotus leaves under a pale sky.
The north-east part of the baray at Preah Khan Kampong Svay, 2012. Photo: Saxula, CC BY-SA 3.0

The isolated site is one of the less visited Angkorian places.[2] It is about a four-hour drive from Siem Reap, and a long day trip from there is possible. Private transport is needed.[2][7] The turnoff is west of highway NH62 at Svay Pak, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) south of Preah Vihear City and 75 kilometers (47 miles) north of Kampong Thom. A dirt road with many potholes runs about 30 kilometers (19 miles) to Ta Seng, and the last 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) to the temple are in fairly good condition.[7] Better roads allow visits all year, though the dry season is easiest.[7] One entry fee covers all the temples within the enclosure.[7]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Wikipedia
  2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 Archaeology Magazine, Off the Grid - Preah Khan of Kompong Svay, Cambodia - Archaeology Magazine - November/December 2020 (2024-09-25)
  3. ↑ 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 whc.unesco.org, The ancient complex of Preah Khan Kompong Svay - UNESCO World Heritage Centre
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 Hello Angkor, Rodney Charles L'Huillier, Preah Khan of Kampong Svay: A Remote Wonder of the Ancient Khmer Empire (undated)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Wikipedia (German), Preah Khan (Preah Vihear)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Giulio Magli, The role of astronomy in the "anomalous" orientations of two Khmer state-temples (arXiv preprint, Politecnico di Milano, undated)
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 Lonely Planet, Preah Khan of Kompong Svay
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 Mitch Hendrickson, T. O. Pryce, Till Sonnemann, Kaseka Phon, Quan Hua and Chan Sovichetra, Industries of Angkor Project: Preliminary Investigation of Iron Production at Boeng Kroam, Preah Khan of Kompong Svay, Journal of Indo-Pacific Archaeology 42 (2018), on Angkor Database
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Preah Khan Kompong Svay - Wikipedia (2009-07-27)
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Angkor Database, Consideration of the Construction Period of the Khmer Temples (2013)
  11. ↑ National Museum of Cambodia, Portrait Head of King Jayavarman VII, museum shop (2013)
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Angkor Database, Les mines de fer de Compong-Swai au Cambodge (Kompong Svay Iron Mining, Cambodia) (2024-02-27)
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This page was last edited on 9 October 2026, at 03:33.