Angkor, archaeological site in what is now northwestern Cambodia, just 4 miles (6 km) north of the modern town of Siemréab. It was the capital of the Khmer (Cambodian) empire from the 9th to the 15th century. Angkor, Cambodia Its most imposing monuments are Angkor Wat, a temple complex built in the 12th century by King Suryavarman II (reigned 1113-c. 1150), and Angkor Thom, a temple complex built about 1200 by King Jayavarman VII.

The city of Angkor served as the royal center from which a dynasty of Khmer kings ruled one of the largest, most prosperous, and most sophisticated kingdoms in the history of Southeast Asia. From the last decade of the 9th century AD, when King Yashovarman I moved his capital to Angkor, until the early years of the 13th century, the kings of Angkor ruled over a territory that extended from the tip of the Indochinese peninsula northward to Yunnan and from Vietnam westward to the Bay of Bengal. During this entire period, these rulers utilized the vast resources of labor and wealth at their disposal to carry through a series of prodigious construction projects designed to glorify both themselves and their capital city. After the reign of King Jayavarman VII (1181-c. 1215), the power and vitality of the kingdom gradually waned until finally, after Thai armies captured and sacked Angkor in 1431, the city was abandoned.

During the period of great construction and building at Angkor, which lasted more than 300 years, many changes in architecture and artistic style can be discerned, and there was a religious movement from the Hindu cult of the god Shiva to that of Vishnu to a Mahayana Buddhist cult devoted to the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara. (see also Index: Hinduism)

Angkor was a center for administration and for the worship of a divine monarch. The city was planned and constructed on the basis of religious and political conceptions imported from India and adapted to local traditions. From the time of Yashovarman I, who gave the city its original name of Yashodharapura, Angkor was conceived as a symbolic universe structured according to the model provided by the traditional Indian cosmology. The city was oriented around a central mountain or pyramid temple that was an architectural adaptation and completion of the one natural hill in the area, the Phnom Bakheng. In the later history of the city, the central temples were completely architectural creations (i.e., pyramid temples), such as the Phimeanakas of Jayavarman V (reigned 968-1001); the Baphuon of Udayadityavarman II (reigned 1050-66); and the Buddhist temple of Bayon, which was the central temple built by Jayavarman VII when he gave the city, which by then had become known as Angkor Thom, its more or less final form. The vast system of reservoirs, canals, and moats that were one of the most notable features of Angkor served primarily as a means of water control and irrigation.

Many of the great temples at Angkor, all of which gave expression to Indian cosmological and mythic themes, were built in order to provide a locus for cults through which kings and other members of the royal family could be assured of immortality through becoming identified with Shiva or one of the other preeminent gods of the realm. For example, Angkor Wat, which is perhaps the greatest and certainly the most famous of all the temples in the Angkor complex, was built by King Suryavarman II in the 12th century as a vast funerary temple within which his remains were to be deposited and his permanent identity with Vishnu symbolically and cultically confirmed.

In the late 13th century, according to the vivid account of the Chinese commercial envoy Chou Ta-kuan, Angkor was still a large, thriving metropolis and one of the most magnificent capitals in all of Asia. Nevertheless, by this time the great building frenzy that had culminated during the reign of Jayavarman VII had clearly come to an end, the new and more restrained religious orientation represented by Theravada Buddhism was on the rise, and the armies of the Thai kingdoms established in the western sections of the empire were beginning to encroach on the Khmer heartland. By the 16th century, when the next available firsthand description was written, these trends had long since led to abandonment of the city, and all that remained were the jungle-covered remnants of the ancient temples and the ruins of the once-magnificent system of reservoirs and waterways.

During the more than four centuries between the demise of the ancient city and the beginning of the modern period (i.e., from the early 15th century to the late 19th century), interest in Angkor was largely focused on Angkor Wat, which, having been taken over and kept largely intact by Theravada Buddhist monks, became one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Southeast Asia. Even during this period, however, a number of early European visitors to Cambodia showed a strong curiosity concerning the "lost city," and when the French colonial regime was established (1863), the entire site became the focus of an intense scholarly interest and concern. Working at first independently and then under the aegis of the government-sponsored French School of the Far East, a talented and dedicated group of French archaeologists and philologists initiated a comprehensive program of research, which has gradually yielded the knowledge now possessed about the history of the city and the fascinating religious and political system that informed and guided its life. Archaeologists also carried through an arduous and painstaking program of reconstruction, through which the ancient complex of temples, reservoirs, and canals was restored to something of its original grandeur.

During the political and military upheavals of the second half of the 20th century in Cambodia, there was some war damage and thievery among the temples at Angkor, but the major problem was one of neglect. Without adequate care taking, the buildings became the prey of engulfing vegetation and eroding water and elements.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Works on Angkor, including both the city and the "Angkor region," all extensively illustrated, include:

George Coedès, Angkor: An Introduction (1963, reissued 1986)

Bernard Groslier and Jacques Arthaud, Angkor: Art and Civilization, rev. ed. (1966)

Jan Myrdal and Gun Kessle, Angkor: An Essay on Art and Imperialism (1970)

Joan Lebold Cohen, Angkor: Monuments of the God-kings (1973)

Madeleine Giteau, The Civilization of Angkor (1976)

Michael Freeman and Roger Warner, Angkor: The Hidden Glories (1990)

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