Angkor What?

Angkor Whatever

ANGKOR ARCHAEOLOGY
Finds 'rewrite history'

By ROB GILHOOLY
Special to The Japan Times

SIEM REAP, Cambodia -- The recent unearthing of hundreds of Buddha statues at a temple in Cambodia's famed Angkor region has forced scholars to reassess theories regarding the final years of the Angkor civilization.

One of the hundreds of Buddhist statues unearthed in Cambodia's Angkor complex.

Late last year, a team led by Japanese researchers from the Sophia University Angkor International Mission uncovered some 167 Buddhist statues and other artifacts from the grounds of Banteay Kdei temple, one of 99 UNESCO-protected monuments in the Angkor complex.

Among these was a four-sided sandstone pillar engraved with 1,008 seated Buddhas, a monument similar to that in Nara's Toshodaiji Temple and other Buddhist sites in China and India, but the first of its kind to be exhumed in Cambodia.

Just a few months previously, the team had found another cache of 105 statues at the same site.

According to Yoshiaki Ishizawa, leader of SUAIM and a professor of Southeast Asian history at Sophia University in Tokyo, the find could "rewrite the history of the latter years of the Angkor Dynasty."


A team led by Japanese researchers from Sophia University unearth further Buddhist statues and artifacts.

For many years, scholars have hypothesized that the dynasty's demise in the mid-13th century was prompted by the expansive building projects of King Jayavarman VII, who ruled from 1181-1221.

Jayavarman VII is credited with instigating the construction of several of Angkor's better-known sites, including the 10-sq.-km walled city of Angkor Thom, in which the extravagant Bayon temple is located, and Preah Khan and Ta Prohm temples. He also commissioned Banteay Kdei, a massive temple located 6 km northeast of the more illustrious Angkor Wat.

However, their exhumation is not a priority for the Sophia University team, Ishizawa insists.

SUIAM began its operations in 1980 to train young Cambodians to undertake conservation and excavation work in the Angkor area. In 1991, it started training in the grounds of Banteay Kdei.

The recent unearthing was pure coincidence and an "added bonus," says Ishizawa, whose association with Angkor dates back to 1961.

"Some young conservationists called me over to look at a stone they had uncovered," he recalled, adding that it was the first such find he had experienced in his 40-year research in Angkor. "I was astonished and very excited. This doesn't happen every day."

Members of the university's team are now in the process of performing hi-tech operations to piece together the broken artifacts. Officials hope to exhibit them in a specially created museum in Siem Reap, the closest town to the Angkor ruins.

The Japan Times: Oct. 27, 2002

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fl20021027a4.htm

[Edited by Broomhandle Davis on 10-28-2002 at 08:14 pm]
 
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