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 Table of Contents
Editorial The Museographical Diversity: culture, environment, population Heritage policies and international perspectives Current Debate - Questions on the Notion of Museum of Civilization Lourdes Arizpe and Azedine Beschaouch
History of the Angkor Site Bruno Dagens From the seventh century, solid monuments of brick and stone and sturdy earth dykes would mark out the subsequent history of the Angkor site up to the thirteenth-fourteenth centuries, and even up to the sixteenth century, before the clearing and restoration of the site, which started at the beginning of the twentieth century. However, the history of Angkor and its inhabitants is complex and tangled. The Angkor temples may serve as testimony to the Khmer sovereigns' respect for their ancestors, but that respect did not necessarily extend to acknowledging the originator of a monument that a later sovereign simply completed and inaugurated. Barely a month goes by without one of the many research teams working at different places on the site clarifying or discovering something, or overturning long-standing certainties. An outline of the site's major landmarks and historical periods, this article defines the Angkor site by the river Stung Siemreap, together with its satellite waterways, the Stung Puok and the Stung Roluos. Crossed by one of these waterways and bordered to the east and west by the other two, the Angkor plain in the broadest sense of the term, is limited to the north and the south by their source and their destination. The other natural landmarks are essentially three volcanic peaks, the only ones to rise out of the forest and the four vast artificial reservoirs (“baray”) whose construction and transformations are likewise an integral part of its history. Top The Gossamer City: a new inquiry Roland Fletcher and Christian Pottier Angkor was not just a walled city, nor a collection of great temples concentrated around it, nor is its extent defined by the great barays. It can now be seen as a vast, flimsy, low density dispersed urban complex spread over about a 1000 sq km from the Tonle Sap to the Kulen hills and their associated ranges. Since the early 1990s, after decades of survey work, the EFEO has developed a research programme concerned with the Khmer concepts of space from the scale of the temple to the whole territory of Angkor. The programme includes research on settlement patterns within Angkor Thom; a survey of the whole of southern Angkor, using aerial photographs and field walking; and now an ongoing project with the University of Sydney combining GIS (Geographical Information Systems) and airborne radar (AIRSAR) of the entire region of Greater Angkor. The 1996 AIRSAR radar system survey showed clearly that great detail could be acquired from aerial radar both on features, but also on environmental phenomena such as partially concealed water flow and on vegetation regimes. Because the different wavelengths of the radar interact differently with the surface texture of the landscape and the groundwater, the system is immensely valuable for the analysis of landscapes and relationship between natural and cultural features. Top The "City" of Angkor. What is it? Jacques Gaucher Any observer just looking at the general plan of the archaeological site of Angkor is struck by the remarkable overall unity of an immense urban configuration extending over almost 450 km. Its exceptional graphic consistency which appears on the ground as a monumental ordering of a series of constructions rarely equalled in geometrical synthesis, link architecture, urban development and physical planning. However, there are still some uncertainties regarding the chronology, positioning and identification of sites or the function of some major constructions making our present knowledge of the “city” of Angkor fragmented. In this monumental spatial synthesis, the autonomy of and links between the three categories of architecture, city and territory are still not sufficiently distinct for it to be possible to propose a clear definition of the history of the “city” of Angkor. For instance, the temples could have been spiritual or funerary; the barays could have been sacred, agricultural or political. It is arguable today that the barays did not play a vital and direct role in the development of the site, in which case the key to the agricultural economy of Angkor is to be sought in the potential of the rivers and the flooding of the great lake, given the existence of a great variety of hydraulic micro-structures. In the same way, despite the fact that the primary infrastructure of Angkor Thom is visible, the history of its formation, who lived there, its internal structure, the planning of its space, its functioning, its physical and social organization, the type of housing and what it was like to live there, and, finally, the real date of its foundation have so far remained a mystery. Top Khmer Epigraphy Claude Jacques Not all Khmer ancient writings have disappeared in spite of the fact that scribes discontinued to recopy and preserve Khmer literature around the beginning of the seventeenth century. The inscriptions remain, engraved on stone, and at times on bronze objects, attesting to the existence of every type of ancient literature -- scientific, educational, historical, epic, and especially, religious. The inscribed stones and objects are exclusively religious: with the temple, its gods, or the properties of gods, as their subject. At times, the inscriptions intruded into “civil” life which was closely bound up with religious life, but this deviation was really no more than accidental. The inscriptions are an essential contribution to the history of the land of the Khmers, but they must not be asked to provide more than they can deliver: the inscriptions are not history textbooks and only say what matters to them. To the list of approximately 1,300 inscriptions found in the land of the Khmer, new ones are constantly being added. The oldest Khmer inscription was found in the south of Cambodia and bears the date of Friday, 21 January 612. Since that date, the Khmers have been continuously engraving inscriptions up to modern times. Top Khmer Visual Narrative Vittorio Roveda Despite the fact that Khmer inscriptions contain few dates of important events and dynastic lineages, a firm chronology of Khmer art was established by scholars of the Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO) in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Through the master works of George Coedès and Louis Finot, a sophisticated sequence of art styles was elaborated and accepted by all Khmerologists. Scholars have looked to visual and decorative elements to define styles which characterise specific moments of Khmer history because only a dozen Angkorian monuments from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries have epigraphic foundation dates. The chronological sequence of “styles” became an accepted tool for understanding Khmer art and culture. At present, various scholars are reassessing the epigraphic data and putting more focus on architectural techniques and technological changes. Initially, styles were defined by the characteristics of architectural and sculptural elements of a temple within a presumed dynastic time and less emphasis was given to visual narrative represented in reliefs. In this article the author re-examines the chronology of the Banteay Srei temple using visual narrative as a tool. Top Human Resources and Cultural Development: a case study of the Angkor Monuments Dr. Yoshiaki Ishizawa Chief of Japan's Sophia University International Mission on Angkor, Dr. Ishizawa explains in detail the three philosophies guiding the mission's restoration work. The first is the preservation and restoration of the monuments in Cambodia by Cambodians for the Cambodians. Considered of primary importance, it involves a human resource training programme. The second is the adoption of a long-term view of the preservation and restoration work: the maintenance of a close link between research and study with regard to the preservation activities of the Angkor monuments and sites, which means that only after a thorough and more detailed investigation and reflection should the preservation and restoration work be undertaken. The third is the commitment to help towards the creation and the maintenance of a balance between the economic and socio-cultural development of the local communities in the Angkor region. During the Pol Pot regime the number of experts was reduced to almost zero, but once again, on-site training work for Cambodian students and trainees from the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh has begun with the training programme for Cambodians which is intended to continue for about fifteen or twenty years. Top Traditional Arts and Crafts for the Future Kiri Shultz This article focuses on the challenges facing the long-range management plan for the Angkor complex involving the local communities and their crafts in preserving the cultural zones within Siem Reap. The zoning plans (ZEMP) advocated the development of economic activities in balance with the surrounding natural environment, and an achievement of cultural, ecological and economic diversity. The environment concerned includes a human population in villages that are dotted throughout the park, villages of true historic significance that pre-date international involvement, populated by people with a deep connection to the land. The United Nations Volunteers Programme (UNV) initiated a pilot project entitled "Community Participation in Protected Areas" which was composed of a team of thirteen international and national specialists and field workers, and covered seven villages, with a combined population of roughly 8048 individuals. Cultural revival and the right of children to regular exposure to the performance arts of their own culture, although a simple notion, is difficult to resurrect in a post-war society. A critical challenge is whether such a renaissance is undertaken specifically for the people whose families have long been a part of the fabric in Siem Reap, or is undertaken for the increasing numbers of tourists visiting the area. With regard to handicrafts, designers and producers become confused in trying to gauge the taste of the market… Top Socio-cultural Development through Intergenerational Links Nobuo Endo A community development project of the United Nations Volunteers (UNV), entitled "Sustainable Community Participation in Angkor Park", was carried out from May 1999 to April 2001. It supported grassroots participatory activities by villagers aiming at self-reliance development. Nobuo Endo joined the project to apply a community development methodology centred on Angkor monuments and sites, entitled "Historical Site Engineering Methodology (HSEM)" which places a value on the co-existence of three kinds of basic components in a community: villagers, as well as Angkor monuments and forests, for a desirable socio-cultural development of the communities in Angkor Park. The author takes us to Kok Thnout Village, one of the three villages where "Yiey" and "Ta" (grandmother and grandfather in the Khmer language) activities were initiated for the development of the communities in the Park. Through vivid description of these activities, he has demonstrated that elderly people have the spiritual and practical function as core members in a family and a community because of their rich experience, knowledge, wisdom, and goodwill to teach younger people. He believes that to make these activities sustainable and systematic, it is necessary to organize elderly people into Yiey and Ta groups, and for Yiey and Ta groups' activities to be implemented, not only by the local community, but also by other stakeholders, such as NGOs, researchers, and the religious community. If the major functions of school education is to give students knowledge and the basic skills to acquire knowledge, those handed down by elderly people in the community should be to conserve and transmit traditional culture and lifestyles. Top The National Museum of Phnom Penh Khun Sameun The author traces the history of the National Museum of Phnom Penh from the beginning of the twentieth century and describes its achievements and future plans. On the eve of the hostilities in 1970, the museum was in the middle of being reorganized and its collections increased to nearly 10,000 prehistoric, archaeological and ethnographic items coming from different sources and including bronzes, stone sculptures and everyday objects of lacquered wood, metal and ceramic. When the civil war erupted, because of the total lack of security at the provincial museums, the main works of art were sent to the National Museum and placed in storage. The museum was reborn in 1979 and in the years 1979-1980, a number of works of art scattered throughout the city’s pagodas, such as copper or chased silver Buddhist statuettes and other artefacts, were brought back to the museum. Work recommenced on an inventory of all the museum’s collections, revealing that the jewellery in its old collection had completely vanished. In spite of this, the museum’s collection has been constantly growing and now comprises more than 14,000 items, almost 2,000 of which are on display. It has not only enriched its collection but also acquired new equipment such as the computers for inventory work and additional work has been carried out, such as the preservation of manuscripts written on fan-palm leaves, the application of insecticides in the library and, especially, the safeguarding of the objects in the reserve collections. But to ensure that the National Museum’s strategy is properly catering for the management of Cambodia’s cultural heritage, a lot remains to be done. Top A Museum of the Civilizations of Angkor: prospects and proposals Son Soubert How can the museological concept and framework of a museum of civilizations at Angkor be defined? If a museum of civilizations is designed on a chronological basis, what should this programme cover for these "civilizations" to be properly understood? The history of Angkor is that of a very large region: alternately hostile and friendly interrelations between the regional powers cannot be understood without mentioning the civilizing influence of India, and the political, cultural and commercial weight of China, of Indochina, that geographical area between India and China, and the island zones. The walls of Angkor Vat and those of the Bayon provide references to the history of the peoples of the region and offer a pictorial record of the existence of relations between those peoples which should be a central focus of the museum’s educational approach. Furthermore, the Khmer heritage is a matter that concerns the Cambodians first and foremost. It would therefore be desirable to conduct a survey of the Khmers’ feelings on the subject, because the international experts’ skills must be consistent with the social needs of population groups in researching and reconstructing their history. The idea of a museological approach that would revisit the history of the Angkorian civilizations is therefore perfectly suitable for portraying so many centuries of history and the great cultural diversity that spread from a small but significant point in space: Angkor. Top The Ramayana Festival, the intangible heritage of Angkor HRH Bhopa Devi In its Khmer form, Ramakerti, the Ramayana, a great epic poem to the glory of Rama that exalts fairness and truth, is very present in the Kingdom of Cambodia. There is in fact ample evidence today of this presence, either through the recitation that traditional storytellers give of the poem – a recitation that sometimes becomes a declamation by singers at village festivities – or through the theatrical arts such as mime, drama, dance and choreography. Usually the Royal Ballet presents the most dramatic scenes of the Ramakerti, which remain focused on the character of Rama, his struggles, his ultimate triumph and coronation, as well as on his spouse Sita who experienced misfortune and betrayal before her great virtue was ultimately acknowledged. The Ramayana/Ramakerti continues to be one of the subjects of predilection of theatrical spectacles (mime and shadow theatre) and choreography in the Kingdom of Cambodia. The popularity it has enjoyed, which has never been denied by the public since the great era of Angkor, illustrates the wealth of the Khmer cultural heritage and the indissoluble link between its two tangible and intangible components. Top Contour Scaling: the disfiguring disease of Angkor Wat Reliefs Hans Leisen The Angkor Wat temple is famous for the bas-reliefs in the galleries of its third enclosure. Its temple walls are covered with a multitude of reliefs, showing mythological scenes, divinities (Devatas), and celestial dancers (Apsaras) as well as floral patterns. However, the temple walls that are exposed to weathering are now in alarming levels of damage. The rapid deterioration and the advanced state of decay observed in more than 350 stone reliefs, led to emergency consolidation activities. Since 1995, the deterioration of the reliefs and their preservation has been the subject of study by the scientists and conservators of the German Apsara Conservation Project (GACP).They perform simultaneous investigations into material parameters, damaging factors, and conservation possibilities and examine appropriate conservation materials at testing areas at Angkor Wat. This article is a detailed explanation of general statements regarding natural stone, its weathering, and provides a brief introduction to the philosophy of stone conservation. Top Preah Khan Ten Years of Conservation John Sanday In a detailed account of the ten-year WMF Preah Khan conservation project, the author explains the project's respect for the symbiosis of architecture and nature. The jungle has been tamed to enable the architecture to take precedence but the resulting creation was never originally intended. In Preah Khan as in Angkor, there were no guidelines applicable for conservation at the time WMF first started its work. However, it was decided to conserve Preah Khan as a partial ruin -- a decision which immediately limited the scope of work to consolidating and conserving the existing structures as they were found. The article narrates explicitly the team's development of an extensive portfolio of special repairs and consolidation techniques to conserve and present the structures of Preah Khan. By following this system of repair, 75 per cent of the structure was retained in its original form. Had there been extensive dismantling and reconstruction, the patina of age and that historic continuity so vital to the qualities of Preah Khan would have been lost. Top The Preservation of the Bayon and the Prasat Suor Prat Towers Takeshi Nakagawa An expression of the Khmer architectural imagination is found in the centre of Angkor Thom -- the Bayon temple -- no doubt one of the most important structure in Khmer architectural history. Still full of mystery and charm, it is close to the heart and spirit of the people and an important site for tourism. It is however, a monument on the verge of ruin. Director-General of the Japanese Governmental Team for the Safeguarding of Angkor, Professor Nakagawa outlines the surveys and inventories which have been carried out in the past eight years in order to establish the master plan for the preservation and restoration of the Bayon complex. They cover the investigations carried out in the important fields of architecture, art history, archaeology, anthropology, petrology, geology, environment, and conservation science. The article also traces the conservation programme of the Prasat Suor Prat Towers, located on the eastern side of the huge Royal Square in the centre of Angkor. Their conservation programme involves the investigation of the structure of their platform structure and foundation problems prior to the planning of preservation methods. Top Exceptional Measures for a Site of Exceptional Value Azedine Beschaouch As early as the mid-nineteenth century, explorers and missionaries had begun to probe the “marvellous enigma” of the great Khmer capital and contributed to developing in Europe the idea of a “mystery of Angkor”, a civilization that matched the dimensions of the major world civilizations such as the pyramids, the temples of India and the pagodas of China, a city which appeared to be the Rome of South-East Asia. It is nonetheless largely due to France that Angkor became universally recognized and as early as 1863, thanks to the periodical La Tour du Monde, the naturalist and “discoverer” Henri Mouhot revealed the earliest pictures. The author recounts the key role he played in the decision-making process leading to the inscription of Angkor on the World Heritage List and in the implementation of its safeguarding programme. Although the ecological and historical site of Angkor meets all the four preliminary criteria for inscription on the World Heritage List, certain procedural conditions required in the context of the guidelines governing the implementation of the World Heritage Convention had not been met. Consequently, the Cambodian authorities were asked to take the necessary measures in order to meet the following conditions: (a) the promulgation of adequate protection legislation; (b) the establishment of a national protection agency with adequate personnel; (c) the establishment of permanent limits based on the Zoning Environmental Management Plan (ZEMP); (d) a definition of significant buffer areas; and (e) the establishment of surveillance and coordination of the international conservation effort. In three years, between 1993 and 1996, these conditions were met satisfactorily, in spite of the aftermath of a 30-year war. Top Management of the Angkor Site: national emblem and world heritage site Vann Molyvann In 1992, the Angkor Site was provisionally inscribed on the World Heritage List and on the List of World Heritage in Danger but the inscription on this first list was conditional upon the Royal Government of Cambodia taking, within three years measures to protect the site. These conditions had been met by early 1996: the Law on Regional Development (1994) and the Law on the Protection of the Cultural Heritage (1996) form the legal framework of the site's management; and two institutions, the Supreme Council for National Culture and the Authority for the Protection of the Site and the Development of the Region of Angkor, known as the APSARA Authority, have been in charge of operational activities since 1995. President and Director-General of the APSARA Authority, the author describes in this article the zoning and management plan of the region of SiemReap/Angkor. Included in this account is the international institutional machinery for the management of the site: the International Co-ordinating Committee for the Safeguarding and Development of the Historic Site of Angkor (ICC), the machinery for managing and monitoring the campaign to safeguard Angkor. The main focus of the article is the description of the Emergency Plan for the management of Angkor which sets out the seven development goals: the establishment of an institutional management framework; a research programme; a programme to restore, preserve and enhance the monuments; human resources development; education of local communities; tourism development; and urban development. It portrays in great detail the four groups of action to implement these seven objectives: the restructuring of the APSARA Authority; enhancing the heritage; promoting tourism; and developing the town of Siem Reap. Top Analyses and Management Prospects of the International Angkor Programme Anne Lemaistre and Sébastien Cavalier In this article, the authors sum up the innovative programme of action set up in 1993 by the international community and UNESCO as an immediate consequence of the exceptional inscription of the Angkor site on the World Heritage List. The programme has four main strategic features: stronger political commitment, implementing new approaches to conservation issues, an unprecedented local training effort, and safeguarding the cultural heritage in the perspective of sustainable development. The Cambodian authorities clearly demonstrated their political will to strengthen the institution responsible for managing the Angkor site – APSARA, and the international community too, has rallied extensively to the cause of safeguarding and developing the site. While the international community and the Cambodian authorities focused on safeguarding the site in order to meet the urgent needs that led to its inscription on the List of World Heritage in Danger, ICC and APSARA have always borne in mind the holistic vision introduced by ZEMP, the UNESCO project which sets out ten principles linked to sustainable development which have been used as a reference framework, including in the setting up of a multidisciplinary strategy for the development of cultural tourism. One of the great assets of the Angkor programme lies in the diversity of the expertise mobilized: this ensures the sustainability of the programme to safeguard and develop Angkor through the training provided to the Cambodians who will be responsible for the site in the future. Top Cultural Tourism and Sustainable Development Hervé Barré The author, an economist specializing in culture and tourism, depicts Cambodia's bright prospects for tourism growth. A strategy of the Cambodian authorities aimed at making Cambodia “a leading cultural and nature tourism destination” has gradually been developed over the past few years, in parallel with work on safeguarding the Angkor site. The Cambodian government thinks that the site should act as an economic operator, providing sustainable development and also helping maintain and increase the cultural influence of a country that, through its culture and renowned civilization, used to enjoy great importance in South-East Asia. This plan must focus primarily on improving the quality of services and facilities through a tourism master plan for Angkor. Another idea that is gaining ground is that tourism development in Angkor should be viewed as the development of a vast area extending beyond the 400 km² of the site itself to encompass the Kulen Hills in the north, Tonle Sap Lake in the south and other sites of the Khmer civilization, with a view to making Cambodia a cultural tourism destination in its own right. The Angkor “development decade” proposed by UNESCO to succeed the Angkor “conservation decade” should adopt a single approach, combining the safeguarding of the heritage, the control of tourist flows and the management of the social transformations that will affect people living near the sites. Top Angkor: a decade of tourist development after a decade of heritage rescue? Stephane Durand A consultant specializing in Cultural Tourism Development Planning, Stephane Durand provides a clear and concrete evaluation of tourism development in Angkor. Everything that has been done by the Cambodian authorities with the assistance of UNESCO and various other international development bodies has indeed rescued the Angkor site but unfortunately, from the perspective of tourist development, the first signs of uncontrolled development (anarchic construction of hotels, unregulated visiting of monuments, build-up of vehicles, and so on) are already quite conspicuous. However, nothing irreparable has been done as yet. Ten years after the site reopened, it is possible to make an initial assessment. In this article, the author sets out the issues and give some pointers with a view to successful tourist planning for Angkor. Angkor is an exceptionally rich topic for discussion on tourist development since it is one of the first times that tourism has been fully integrated into an operation to safeguard a monument. In addition, the tourist future of Angkor will determine to a significant extent the economic future of Cambodia. Among other pointers, the author suggests the drafting of an Angkor Charter which could set out the rules that would be needed for the heritage to play a part in a society’s economic system and could establish the major development principles that should be implemented for the controlled use of the heritage, combining the objectives of preservation, enhancement and sustainability of the natural, archaeological and historic heritage with those of economic and social development. Top The Looting of Angkor: keeping up the pressure Etienne Clément A brisk and sharp review written by the UNESCO Representative in Cambodia who is also Head of the UNESCO Office in Phnom Penh. A lawyer specializing in International and Heritage law, Etienne Clement recounts the international community's return to Angkor in 1992 to support the Cambodians in safeguarding this heritage of humanity and to assess the extent of the looting and suggest remedies. The temples had suffered less than had been feared from the fighting of the last 20 years, but systematic, very recent looting had left fresh traces: apsaras and garudas torn from their places, giant heads removed and bas-reliefs defaced forever. At His Majesty’s instance, initial emergency measures were taken: strengthening of security at the Angkor Conservation Office, staff training, public awareness-raising and, above all, the alerting of the international community through UNESCO. The International Council of Museums (ICOM) took matters in hand with a veritable crusade to make all its members respect its code of conduct, which forbids museums to acquire objects stolen from other countries’ national collections. Thanks to a large-scale and detailed inventory, ICOM was able to publish a list of 100 important objects lost between 1972 and 1995. To keep up the pressure and stamp out this scourge, five hundred and twenty Cambodian policemen were trained and countermeasures on the legal front are being fine-tuned. Top
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