Heritage site
Srah Srang
Srah Srang is a reservoir at Angkor, east of Banteay Kdei, with a carved landing terrace built in the late 12th century under King Jayavarman VII.[1][2] Its name is rendered as "the royal bathing pool"[1] or "the Royal Basin".[3]
History
Maurice Glaize, in his 1944 guide to the Angkor monuments, noted that the basin lies slightly off axis and judged that it was dug before the reign of Jayavarman VII.[1] The terrace, in line with the axis of Banteay Kdei, dates from Jayavarman VII's reign in the late 12th century.[1] A broad raised walkway (esplanade) once joined the basin and the temple into one complex.[2]
Excavations under Bernard-Philippe Groslier from 1963 to 1965 uncovered evidence of complex funerary rites from the 10th to the 14th centuries, and underground pits in which statues had been stored with care inside clay jars.[3][1] A Bayon-style statue of Bhaishajyaguru, a form of the Buddha, was also found at Srah Srang. It measures 62 by 36 by 22 centimeters (24 by 14 by 9 inches) and is seated in meditation with a fruit or lotus bud in its right palm, and was shown in the gallery of 1,000 Buddha images at the Angkor National Museum as of 2016.[4]
The basin
The basin measures 700 meters (2,300 feet) by just over 300 meters (980 feet)[1] or 780 by 380 meters (2,560 by 1,250 feet).[2] Laterite steps line its edges, with an outer border of sandstone. A small island marks its center, where fitted stone blocks may have been the base of a light pavilion.[1] Glaize found it always full of water and ringed by tall trees, and likened its calm to the great ornamental waters of Versailles.[1]
The terrace
The landing terrace has a molded sandstone base on laterite foundations. Its plan of paired small courtyards suggests it once carried a light building, a large rectangular hall with galleries around it.[1] A central stairway guarded by two lions splits into three flights at a middle landing, which sets off its naga (serpent) balustrades.[1] At the front, a huge garuda, a divine bird with a human body, rides a three-headed naga whose other heads frame it. At the rear the naga reappears with the garuda's thighs and its stylized tail, decorated with small naga heads. The naga's body rests on blocks carved with monsters that hold it up as atlantes, figures that serve as supports.[1] Glaize saw the terrace as the high point of this formula of the Bayon style.[1]
Restoration
Henri Marchal cleared the site in 1920, and Groslier excavated and restored it from 1963 to 1965.[1] In a project begun in 2009 and running as of 2014, the APSARA National Authority, with funds from Jet Tours through UNESCO's World Heritage Center and from New Zealand, strengthened and restored the Srah Srang complex, centered on its jetty.[2] The project linked the nearby villages of Rohal, North Srah Srang and South Srah Srang with the conservation work, and added walking and cycling paths around the basin.[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 Angkor Database, Maurice Glaize, The Monuments of the Angkor Group (1944; English translation of the fourth French edition)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 ICC-Angkor, 20 Years of International Cooperation for Conservation and Sustainable Development (January 2014)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Cambodianess, From EFEO Outpost to Heritage Icon: A Short History of the Conservation d'Angkor (July 5, 2026)
- ↑ Angkor National Museum, Angkor National Museum Bulletin, Volume 8 (October 2016)