Angkor Wat

Mouhot, like other early Western visitors, found it difficult to believe that the Khmers could have built the temple and mistakenly d

ated it to around the same era as Rome. His reports inspired the French government, already an established presence in Indochina, to

study the ruins. The true history of Angkor Wat was pieced together from stylistic and epigraphic evidence accumulated during subseque

nt clearing and restoration work. There were no ordinary dwellings or houses or other signs of settlement, including cooking utensils,

weapons, or items of clothing usually found at ancient sites. Instead there is only the evidence of the monuments themselves.An explor

ation commission began drawing up a list of principal monuments. Subsequent missions copied inscriptions written on Angkor buildings

so scholars might translate them and learn something of Angkors history. By 1885 they had worked up a chronology of the rulers and de

veloped the outlines of a description of the civilization that had produced the temple complex. In 1898 the French decided to commit

substantial funds to Angkors preservation. Centuries of neglect had permitted the jungle to recapture many of the more significant st

ructures, and unless efforts were made to free the buildings from the embrace of huge banyan and silk-cotton trees, they might soon be

crushed to destruction.

Unlike most Khmer temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west rather than the east. This has led many including Maurice Glaize and Ge

orge Coed to conclude that Suryavarman intended it to serve as his funerary temple.Further evidence for this view is provided by the

bas-reliefs, which proceed in a counter-clockwise direction—prasavya in Hindu terminology—as this is the reverse of the normal order.

Rituals take place in reverse order during Brahminic funeral services.The archaeologist Charles Higham also describes a container whi

ch may have been a funerary jar which was recovered from the central tower.It has been nominated by some as the greatest expenditure

of energy on the disposal of a corpse.Freeman and Jacques, however, note that several other temples of Angkor depart from the typical

eastern orientation, and suggest that Angkor Wats alignment was due to its dedication to Vishnu, who was associated with the west.

Angkor Wat is the prime example of the classical style of Khmer architecture—the Angkor Wat style—to which it has given its name. By

the 12th century Khmer architects had become skilled and confident in the use of sandstone as the main building material. Most of the

visible areas are of sandstone blocks, while laterite was used for the outer wall and for hidden structural parts. The binding agent

used to join the blocks is yet to be identified, although natural resins or slaked lime has been suggested.The temple has drawn praise

above all for the harmony of its design. According to Maurice Glaize, a mid-20th-century conservator of Angkor, the temple attains a

classic perfection by the restrained monumentality of its finely balanced elements and the precise arrangement of its proportions. It

is a work of power, unity and Architecturally, the elements characteristic of the style include: the ogival, redented towers shaped

like lotus buds half-galleries to broaden passageways axial galleries connecting enclosures and the cruciform terraces which appear

along the main axis of the temple. Typical decorative elements are devatas, bas-reliefs, and on pediments extensive garlands and narra

onsidered conservative, being more static and less graceful than earlier work.Other elements of the design have been destroyed by loo

ting and the passage of time, including gilded stucco on the towers, gilding on some figures on the bas-reliefs, and wooden ceiling pa

nels and doors.