West Baray

West Baray (បារាយណ៍ខាងលិច), also called Baray Teuk Thla (បារាយណ៍ទឹកថ្លា), is the largest of the old reservoirs at Angkor. It measures about 8 by 2 kilometers (5 by 1.2 miles) and is the only one of Angkor's four barays that still holds water.

Boats on the shore of the West Baray, 2010. Photo: Gabriella Clare Marino, CC BY-SA 3.0

Heritage site details
Khmer name	បារាយណ៍ខាងលិច
Also known as	Baray Teuk Thla
Site type	Archaeological site
Location	Angkor
Country	Cambodia
Period	11th century
Subjects	Land, Place & Environment; History & Remembrance

Building

The Khmer history series on Radio Free Asia credits King Udayadityavarman II (ឧទ័យាទិត្យាវរ្ម័នទី២) with digging the reservoir west of his new royal city in the 11th century. It gives the size as 8 kilometers long and 2,200 meters (7,200 feet) wide, larger than any earlier baray, and says it served the economy as well as religion. On an island at its center he built a temple, the West Mebon (ប្រាសាទមេបុណ្យខាងលិច). The archaeoastronomer Giulio Magli writes that it is not fully clear whether Suryavarman I (សូរ្យវរ្ម័នទី១) had already begun it. The 2012 study gives the usual dating as the early 1000s, while noting that the exact date is unknown.

The builders raised earth banks around the edge, using soil dug from trenches inside it. Magli notes that the north bank lines up east to west with the Baphuon (ប្រាសាទបាពួន), the state temple of its builder, 2.2 kilometers (1.4 miles) from the corner. The West Mebon lines up in the same way with the temple of Pre Rup.

Water

The floor of the reservoir slopes from the northeast down to the southwest, about 8 meters (26 feet) in all. Filled to its present limit, it would hold 53 million cubic meters of water. About 65 percent of its water and silt comes from the Siem Reap River and the rest from rain. Canals brought water to the northeast corner, where a channel 25 meters (82 feet) wide fed it into the reservoir. Channels from the southwest corner led toward the Tonle Sap (ទន្លេសាប) and the rice fields south of the reservoir.

The 2012 study notes earlier arguments that Angkor's water works were only symbolic. Its authors think they probably served for flood control, irrigation and ritual together.

A record in the mud

In the 2012 study, a team led by Mary Beth Day of the University of Cambridge took a core of mud about 2 meters (6.6 feet) long from the deep southwest corner. They dated it by radiocarbon. Silt built up at a high rate from the reservoir's construction through the 13th century, while it was in use and kept up. In the 14th century the rate dropped about tenfold, at the same time as the failures of the monsoon in the late 14th and early 15th centuries recorded in tree rings from Vietnam. The authors tie these changes in the water system to the decline of Angkor. By the 17th century the reservoir was again a lake.

Ak Yum

The reservoir partly covered Ak Yum, an 8th-century temple, when it was built. In 2019, when the water was low, archaeologists from Cambodia's Department of Conservation of Monuments uncovered parts of the temple's foundation.

Irrigation

The APSARA National Authority manages the reservoir's water. Besides serving the conservation of the temples, it waters dry-season rice for nearly 7,000 families downstream. In January 2024 the authority wrote that it had been releasing water for these fields since December 2023. The farmers using it live in 65 villages in nine communes, with 7,850 hectares (19,400 acres) of land. A leader of the farmers' group said their dry-season fields rely largely on the reservoir, along with Dam 78 and the Tonle Sap.

References