Heritage site
Terrace of the Elephants
The Terrace of the Elephants is a long carved royal terrace in Angkor Thom, facing a square in front of the earlier Royal Palace.[1][2] Maurice Glaize, in his guide to the monuments of Angkor, dated it to the late 12th century and the reign of Jayavarman VII.[1] Most of its wall panels carry elephants with drivers on their backs, carved in high relief and close to life-size.[1]
Setting
The terrace runs along the square for more than 300 meters (about 980 feet), from the Baphuon temple to the Terrace of the Leper King.[1] Glaize found that both of its ends were unclear in plan and that the terrace showed signs of later additions and changes.[1] Behind its central stairway stands the eastern gateway of the Royal Palace, the main entrance to the palace enclosure, where the temple of Phimeanakas stands.[3] Inscriptions on that gateway's door frames, dating from 1011 under Suryavarman I, reproduce the oaths of loyalty of the kingdom's dignitaries.[3] Long Ton wrote that leaving the palace by its eastern gate leads to the terrace.[2]
Across the square from the terrace, a road leads to the Victory Gate of Angkor Thom.[2] As of 2022, the open ground in front of the terrace served for large gatherings.[2] Long Ton, a Cambodian guide to Angkor, wrote in Cambodianess that the terrace was the king's battlefield tent.[2] It is one of several well-known sites inside the walls of Angkor Thom, with the Bayon, the Baphuon and the Preah Pithu group of temples.[4]
Architecture
Five stairways lead up from the square, and three of them are larger than the rest.[1] The southern of the three main stairways is framed by three-headed elephants whose trunks form pillars and tug at lotuses. The same motif appears on the gates of Angkor Thom and on the two secondary stairways on either side of the central one.[1] The central stairway is the grandest. Its side walls, and the walls of the terrace as far as the secondary stairways, are carved with lions and garudas (mythical birds) shown as atlantes, figures that appear to carry the structure on their arms.[1] Higher up, lions carved in the round mark each change of level, beside balustrades shaped as nagas (serpents) with garudas on their hoods, in the style of the Bayon; a few older balustrades lack the garuda.[1]
The other wall panels carry elephants carved in high relief along their full length. Seen in profile and close to life-size, they move through hunting scenes with drivers on their backs, under a naga balustrade.[1] The northern end has two steep stairs, set symmetrically, in place of a central stairway. Another stairway on the northern face is carved partly with garudas and lions and partly with horizontal bands showing sports: wrestling, chariot races and polo. Glaize wrote that polo came from India.[1]
The top of the terrace has two levels: a border 4 meters (13 feet) wide facing the square, and above it a platform of 10 meters (33 feet), on a base carved with hamsas, sacred geese. Glaize wrote that light palace pavilions must have stood on it, although their form is unknown.[1]
Earlier phases
In front of the northern end lie the remains of laterite masonry, which Glaize judged had once been faced with carved sandstone.[1] A dig just in front of it showed that the layout there had been changed. In the pit, a panel in high relief survives from an earlier facade. It shows the king's five-headed horse, sheltered by tiered parasols and surrounded by apsaras (celestial dancers) and threatening spirits armed with sticks who chase small, frightened figures.[1] Finot and Goloubew suggested that the panel shows Lokesvara taking the shape of Balaha, a divine horse.[1]
A second dig, at the stairway Glaize describes as the second on the south side of the central group, uncovered garudas and lions carved as atlantes, in excellent condition and set in line with the main facade. Glaize took this as evidence that the stairway was added later.[1]
Conservation
The terrace was cleared by de Mecquenem in 1911 and by H. Marchal in 1916.[1] The École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO), the French institute that took charge of the study and care of Angkor in 1907, states that all its activities at Angkor were interrupted when the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975.[5] In 1992 the Cambodian government invited the EFEO back. Its work then included finishing restoration work on the Royal Terraces and the Baphuon that the civil war had cut short, in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts and later the APSARA National Authority.[5]
Two sources on the Terrace of the Leper King, where the terrace ends, date the halt earlier. Le Journal des Arts wrote that the war stopped work there for good at the end of 1972.[6] The Angkor Database wrote that it was left unfinished in 1973, when the Khmer Rouge stopped all conservation at Angkor.[7]
The two-year restoration of the Terrace of the Leper King was led by the architect Jacques Dumarçais, with Christophe Pottier in charge on site. Le Journal des Arts reported on May 1, 1996, that it had just been completed and formally handed over on March 17.[6] Pottier later directed the restoration of the northern stairway of the Terrace of the Elephants, which was completed in March 1999.[7] The EFEO archives in Paris hold his annual report on that work for April 1997 to April 1998.[8]
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 The Angkor Guide, Maurice Glaize, Terrace of the Elephants, from The Monuments of the Angkor Group (1944; English translation)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Cambodianess, Long Ton, Angkor Thom: the Khmer Empire's Enclosed and Complex 12th Century City (April 2, 2022)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 The Angkor Guide, Maurice Glaize, Phimeanakas and the Royal Palace enclosure, from The Monuments of the Angkor Group (1944; English translation)
- ↑ Cambodianess (ThmeyThmey), Isa Rohany, The Five Gateways of Angkor Thom (November 4, 2023)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 École française d'Extrême-Orient, Siem Reap (centre page, in French; updated September 2, 2026)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Le Journal des Arts, La terrasse du Roi Lépreux restaurée (May 1, 1996; in French)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Angkor Database, King in the Temple: Jayavarman VII Case Study (August 25, 2019)
- ↑ Archives de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient, Christophe Pottier, Restauration du perron Nord de la Terrasse des Éléphants, Angkor Thom (Cambodge). Rapport annuel avril 1997 - avril 1998 (archive record, undated; in French)