excavating the causeway at the east gate of angkor thom

55
Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom Internship Report Thomas Van Damme (00906176) - 2 nd Year Bachelor in Archaeology Fieldwork 1 - Ghent University: Academic Year 2010-2011 Internship Supervisors: Chourn Bunnath and Heng Than Course Titular: Ernie Haerinck - Internship Responsible: Lien Lombaert

Upload: thomas-van-damme

Post on 03-Dec-2014

111 views

Category:

Documents


0 download

DESCRIPTION

Account of the summer 2011 APSARA excavations at the East Gate (~ Gate of the Dead) of Angkor Thom, Angkor complex, Cambodia.

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

Excavating the Causeway

at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

Internship Report

Thomas Van Damme (00906176) - 2nd Year Bachelor in Archaeology

Fieldwork 1 - Ghent University: Academic Year 2010-2011

Internship Supervisors: Chourn Bunnath and Heng Than

Course Titular: Ernie Haerinck - Internship Responsible: Lien Lombaert

Page 2: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

1

Table of Contents

1. Motivation for Internship Participation.................................................................................. 2

2. An Introduction to the Site ..................................................................................................... 3

2.1. Historical Context ........................................................................................................... 5

2.2. Geographical Context...................................................................................................... 6

2.3. The Site’s Research History............................................................................................ 7

3. Working Circumstances, Site Organisation and Fieldwork Methods .................................. 11

3.1. Working Circumstances ................................................................................................ 11

3.2. Site Organisation and Fieldwork Methods.................................................................... 12

4. Excavation Results and Their Implications.......................................................................... 16

4.1. Archaeological Finds..................................................................................................... 16

4.2. Stratigraphy ................................................................................................................... 16

4.3. Conclusions ................................................................................................................... 17

5. Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. 18

6. Bibliography......................................................................................................................... 19

7. Illustration Sources............................................................................................................... 20

8. Annexes................................................................................................................................ 21

Page 3: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

2

1. Motivation for Internship Participation

Living in Cambodia as a kid I visited the ruins of Angkor on several occasions and had

always felt a deep sense of wonder and attraction towards these marvellous jungle-clad

temples and cities. In fact they are, along with inspiring history teachers and of course Indiana

Jones, probably the main reason I’m interested in archaeology today. The Cambodian heritage

is so extensive and so rich that even after more than a hundred years of archaeological

research, lost temples are still being discovered in the jungle. Moreover, modern research is

making it increasingly clear that even within well-known complexes such as Angkor Wat or

Angkor Thom, much is left to be found, studied and preserved.

Naturally, to actually be able to do an internship at this UNESCO World Heritage Site seemed

like a childhood dream come true. Furthermore my parents had to follow up several projects

in Cambodia over the summer, so we asked my sister and agreed that this would be the

perfect place to combine our family holidays with my archaeological field training. I

contacted the people at APSARA (Authority for the Protection and Management of Angkor

and the Region of Siem Reap), the Cambodian institution governing Angkor, and they were

kind enough to accept me as an internship student on one of their excavations.

Page 4: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

3

2. An Introduction to the Site

“Through here all comers to the city had to pass, and in honour of this function it has been

built in a style grandiose and elegant, forming a whole, incomparable in its strength and

expression” (de Beerski 1923, 52).

Our excavation site was located at the East Gate, also known as the Gate of the Dead. It is one

of five entry gates into king Jayavarman VII’s capital city of Angkor Thom (Map 1). The city

dates to the late 12th and early 13th centuries, is nine square kilometres in size and would have

supported around a million people, making it larger than any contemporary European city,

and comparable only to the largest Chinese

and Arab cities of that time. For defensive

reasons it is surrounded by a 12km long, 8m

high laterite wall and a 100m wide moat

(Gaucher 2010, 54-56; Lockard 1995, 19-20;

Rooney 2001, 155-161).

Its five gates were built between 1190 and

1210, are 23m high and are all composed of

three towers decorated with four enormous

stone faces, which are a typical feature of the

architecture at the time of Jayavarman VII

[for archaeological drawings of East Gate,

see Annex 5, p. 28-30; for photographs of the faces of East Gate, see Annex 6, p. 30]. Though

there are different theories as to whom the faces represent, including such beings as Brahma,

Buddha or the guardians of the four cardinal points, the most accepted theory is now that they

are images of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara; a person who is capable of becoming a Buddha

but instead remains on earth to help other people reach enlightenment. He is the embodiment

of altruism and one of the most important characters in Mahayana Buddhism. The faces also

bear a close resemblance to known statues of Jayavarman VII (Image 2, p. 6), as if watching

over his subjects; it leads scholars to believe that the king wished to portray himself as a

bodhisattva (Hawixbrock 2010, 199; Mabbet et al. 2002, 7, 31-34; Rooney 2001, 156-157).

At each of the five gates, massive causeways cross the moat and allow access to the city [for

aerial photographs of the causeways, see Annex 7, p. 32]. These five causeways were lined on

Map 1: The gates of Angkor Thom.

Page 5: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

4

both sides with a balustrade of big stone statues, the 54 statues to the left of the entrance

representing devas or gods and the 54 to the right representing asuras or demons. Both groups

are pulling a naga, a mythological seven-headed snake (Image 1) [for photographs of remains

of the balustrade at East Gate, see Annex 11, p. 36]. This is a representation of the Hindu

myth of “the Churning of the Ocean of Milk”: in an effort to produce amrita, the elixir of

immortality, the devas and asuras combine their power and wrap Vasuki, the naga king,

around Mount Mandara. For 1000 years they pull the naga, thus turning Mount Mandara and

using its movement to churn the Ocean of Milk. When the amrita is finally created, a great

battle for its possession takes place between the devas and asuras. Eventually Vishnu

intervenes and with the help of the devas, obtains the amrita and keeps it out of harm’s way,

re-establishing the peace (Daguan 1992, 2; Rooney 2001, 157-161; Roveda 2000, 54).

This myth is often displayed at Khmer temples, the most famous example probably being the

ca. 50m long bas-reliefs on the Eastern Gallery of Angkor Wat [Annex 15, p. 46-47]. In the

version embodied by the giant statues at the causeways of Angkor Thom, Mount Mandara is

actually represented by the immense Bayon state temple, located at the centre of Angkor

Thom, in the extension of the causeways. Here the myth is thus retold in three dimensions,

Image 1: The causeway at North Gate in 1946.

Page 6: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

5

and at the scale of an entire city (personal communication Heng Than; Rooney 2001, 157-

161)!

It is on one of these causeways, 74m in front of the East Gate, that our excavation took place.

2.1. Historical Context

To be able to understand the site in its rich historical context I will give a very short summary

of some of the key moments in Angkor’s history. This history is well understood thanks

firstly to thousands of Khmer inscriptions at the temples, secondly through contemporary

Chinese accounts, and finally due to the abundant archaeological evidence (Gaucher 2010, 54;

Roveda 2000, 8).

The Angkorian period of Cambodian history starts in 802 CE, when Jayavarman II

proclaimed himself ‘universal monarch’ and managed to unite the different principalities in

northern Cambodia into the Khmer Empire. Some 38 kings from three dynasties succeeded

him from the 9th to the mid 15th centuries. To legitimize their position and to demonstrate

supremacy over other throne contenders, these kings adorned their capitals with impressive

temples made first from brick (9th-10th centuries) and later from laterite and sandstone (11th-

13th centuries).

The empire reached the peak of its power in the 12th century under Suryavarman II, who

established trade relations with China and controlled not only present-day Cambodia but also

large parts of Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Burma. Furthermore he commissioned the

construction of Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world, which still

embellishes the Cambodian flag today. It was originally built as his mausoleum and as a

Hindu temple dedicated to Vishnu, but was later converted to a Buddhist temple and was

never abandoned, remaining a place of worship to this day (Freeman et al. 1999, 8-13;

Higham 2009, 585-587; Rooney 2001, 23-31).

After the death of Suryavarman II the kingdom declined because of weak rulers and constant

war, eventually suffering a disastrous defeat against the Cham from southern Vietnam in

1177. This would have been the end of the Khmer Empire were it not for prince Indrakumara,

who after four years of fighting, succeeded in reclaiming the throne and even expanding the

kingdom’s old borders [for a comparison between the extent of Cambodia today and the

extent of the Khmer Empire then, see Annex 1, p. 24]. Crowned Jayavarman VII (Image 2),

he became the last great Khmer king and during his reign from 1181 to 1219, he undertook

Page 7: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

6

the empire’s most ambitious building program yet.

In fact he is considered responsible for about half of

all the monuments at Angkor! His projects included

102 hospitals, 121 resting houses along the roads

spanning his empire, hundreds of temples, an

immense water reservoir, and even a new capital

city: Angkor Thom. Since our excavation site

studies one of the five causeways into Angkor

Thom, it is in the historical context of this final

flowering of Khmer influence and culture that the

site must be contemplated.

In the following centuries the kingdom fell into

steady decline due to a combination of factors

including harsh droughts, a deteriorating water

management infrastructure and the emergence of Phnom Penh in southern Cambodia as a

competing centre of trade. Ultimately, in 1431, armies from the kingdom of Ayutthaya in

southern Thailand invaded the weakened empire and looted its capital. Angkor was never

entirely abandoned but it failed to regain its former glory and for the most part the monuments

fell into disuse and were eventually claimed by the jungle (Freeman et al. 1999, 13; Higham

2009, 587-590; Mabbet et al. 2002, 31-34; Rooney 2001, 31-32; Snellgrove 2004, 146-148).

2.2. Geographical Context

Angkor Thom was located at the heart of the kingdom, in the centre of the Greater Angkor

region [for an archaeological map of Angkor Thom, see Annex 3, p. 26; for an archaeological

map of Greater Angkor, see Annex 2, p. 25], some 20km to the north of the Tonle Sap Lake in

present-day Siem Reap Province in northwest Cambodia. The location was ideal for

agriculture because of its proximity to the fish-rich lake with its fertile floodplains and

because three rivers flow nearby, providing water that could be channelled and stored during

the rainy season and then accessed for rice cultivation at times of water shortage. The city is

lodged right in the middle of this ancient water management infrastructure, with the three

biggest reservoirs of the empire located to its direct west (West Baray), north (Jayavarman

VII’s own Jayatataka) and east (East Baray) (Map 2).

Image 2: Statue of Jayavarman VII.

Page 8: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

7

As stated above, the causeway we studied is situated at Angkor Thom’s East Gate. Today the

moat on either side of the causeway is dry most of the year, turning into a shallow swamp

only during rainy seasons. The causeway itself is covered entirely by jungle, with only a small

dirt track passing on top [for a picture of the current outlook of the causeway, see Annex 14,

p. 40, top right image]. The surrounding ground consists of typical tropical red soils, rich in

iron and aluminium. The Siem Reap River flows some 500m to the east [for a topographic

map of the area around our excavation site, see Annex 4, p. 27].

2.3. The Site’s Research History

Ever since the early 20th century, when Cambodia was still a French colony, the École

française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO) has studied Angkor and has fortunately kept arduous

records of their research. Today the EFEO library in Siem Reap boasts an extensive collection

of old reports, archaeological maps, and a database of more than 67000 pictures. The oldest

reports of our “Porte des Morts” date to 1917, but some of its pictures date as early as 1909

(Dieulefils 2006, 80-81).

The causeways at the South, North and Victory Gates have remained in pretty good condition

throughout the ages, and were entirely restored in the first half of the 20th century to allow

Map 2: The location of Angkor and a schematic representation of its water management infrastructure.

Page 9: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

8

traffic to pass through the Angkor Thom complex. Meanwhile it is clear from the EFEO

report of 1917 that the causeway at East Gate lay in utter ruin even then (EFEO 1992, 1). The

reason it is in such a bad state of conservation compared to the other causeways is probably

that the road leading east from East Gate runs a dead end on the Siem Reap River only 500m

further, where the bridge across has long since disappeared. Therefore, in the ages following

the demise of Angkor when locals entered or exited the city from the east, it was a much more

logical choice to go through Victory Gate, just half a kilometre to the north. With East Gate

falling into disuse it was gradually overgrown by jungle and, barely frequented by the

villagers, it received the superstitious nickname “Gate of Ghosts” or “Gate of the Dead” (Paris

1941, 324-325; personal communication Heng Than).

It is interesting to note that the 1917 report mentions, and the pictures show, several parts of

the balustrade that were still in place at the time but have now either been taken from the site

or collapsed. Examples are the five devas that still stood erect at the east end of the causeway

(Image 3) and a giant with many heads just to the north of the entrance [for photographs of

remains of the balustrade at East Gate, see Annex 11, p. 36] (EFEO 1992, 1).

Image 3: Five deva statues that were still in place in 1917, but have since collapsed.

Page 10: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

9

Starting in 1924, efforts concentrated on clearing the jungle that had overgrown the gate [for

photographs of East Gate before and during its clearing, see Annex 8, p. 33; for a picture of

the current outlook of East Gate, see Annex 14, p. 40] and reassembling parts of the original

architecture wherever possible. In the process the EFEO also found and restored several

impressive monumental statues [Annex 9, p. 34] and discovered a whole “nest of small

statues of Avalos” (probably short for Avalokitesvara) (EFEO 1992, 1-6).

In 1925 the large U-shaped laterite masses to each side of the city’s entrance were studied for

the first time. While their purpose remains obscure up to this day, the site yielded a lot of roof

tiles, along with the charred remains of a wooden frame, scraps of metal and what may have

been charred fragments of human bones. The report hypothesizes that the structures were

once guard towers, accessible only from the top of the gate, or that they served to close the

gap between the wall and the moat, thus concentrating attacking armies in the small area

between the gate and the causeway. A fact that proved to be important for understanding the

stratigraphy of our own site, is that the EFEO then used the soil cleared from these laterite

structures to renovate the road on top of the causeway (EFEO 1992, 3-6).

Finally, from 1934 to 1936 several consecutive excavations studied a system of canals or

sewers along and underneath the road directly to the west of East Gate [Annex 10, p. 35]

(EFEO 1992, 7-8).

After this no archaeological research was conducted

at East Gate until just recently, when APSARA

authority opened several trenches inside the moat,

bordering the southern edge of the causeway. The

objective was to see whether the causeway had been

built to allow water from the moat to pass freely

underneath. They concluded that this was not the case

and that therefore water must have been channelled

into each part of the moat separately. The excavations

also yielded a lot of very interesting archaeological

finds [Annex 12, p. 37-38] like fragments (arms,

torsos, entire heads, …) of the statue balustrade of the

devas pulling the naga (Image 4), around 160 small

stone and bronze statues of Buddha and

Avalokitesvara, stone axes and an iron spearhead. Image 4: Head of a deva.

Page 11: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

10

Our excavation this summer was in fact a continuation of this extensive study. The position of

our trench on top of the elevated causeway made it an ideal location to dig during rainy

season, when I was there, since it was the only archaeological site in the immediate

surroundings that would not flood. The research objective was to understand the interior

structure and build-up of the causeways.

Page 12: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

11

3. Working Circumstances, Site Organisation and Fieldwork Methods

When reading this section it is important to keep in mind that Cambodia is still a third world

country and does not enjoy the same financial luxuries we take for granted in Europe. Both of

my internship supervisors have had a training abroad, in countries such as France, Germany

and Australia. They are familiar with all the proper techniques for topographic measurements,

geophysical prospecting, dating, excavating and so forth, but most of the time they lack the

necessary money or equipment. Furthermore, in a country so dependant on tourism, most of

APSARA’s financial resources are used to conserve and restore the main temples and the

country’s known cultural patrimony, leaving very little for new research. Finally Cambodia

simply has a culture very different from ours, adhering to different principles and values.

3.1. Working Circumstances

My two supervising archaeologists, Heng Than and Chourn Bunnath, stood at the head of a

team of 33 day workers. About half of the labourers worked on our excavation on top of the

causeway, while the other half was closing the previous excavation inside the moat. Aside

from my supervisors only two of the workers spoke English, and since my Khmer is very

basic I was usually asked to work in the same team as them so that they could translate for me

whenever necessary. On-site working hours were from 8:00 to 15:00, while the APSARA

office was open until 17:00 giving Than, Bunnath and I the opportunity to go there after work

to exchange documents or do additional research in the APSARA library. Our lunch break

was fortunately from 11:00 to 12:30, during the hottest hours of the day. Average daytime

temperatures were 32°C, mounting even higher over lunch and then usually dropping again in

the afternoon due to the predictable heavy monsoon rains. To prevent looting, four guards

stood watch over the site during the night. With a lot of Khmer artefacts ending up on the

black market in Thailand, looting has become a very lucrative business and poses a serious

threat to conservation efforts at Angkor.

There were no safety or health regulations to adhere to whatsoever: most of the workers didn’t

use gloves and walked barefoot or on basic plastic flip-flops. I do not consider this wise but I

will not criticize it either since, as stated above, APSARA does not have the necessary funds

to enforce rigorous safety standards. Admittedly, after several days on the site I too started

wearing flip-flops because I was tired of my safety boots getting soaked with water whenever

Page 13: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

12

I was working in the monsoon rain for a few minutes. I did however insist on wearing my

safety gloves because during my ten days on the site I was in close contact with two different

species of poisonous spiders (one of which landed on my head, the other was taken home by a

worker to use as traditional medicine), a 2m long green snake (which was taken home to be

eaten), a ca. 20cm long red centipede supposedly almost as poisonous as a cobra, two dead

scorpions and finally something I can only describe as a very poisonous silver worm [for

pictures of these animals, see Annex 13, p. 39].

Other curiosities when working on the site included 1) children: occasionally some of the

workers brought their kids along to work, 2) jungle fruits: over lunch the women often headed

into the jungle to find exotic fruits to share with the group, 3) fish fighting: the workers placed

their bets and then two small fish were put into the same bucket, fighting for several minutes

until one fish retreated, thus losing the match, 4) the family atmosphere within the team: the

workers referred to Than and Bunnath as “uncle” (pooh), I was asked to refer to the workers

as “older sister” (bong srey) or “older brother” (bong proh), and they liked calling me by the

nickname Thomnáh, which means “very big”, instead of simply Thomas.

3.2. Site Organisation and Fieldwork Methods

Type of Excavation: Since the site was not in danger of being destroyed, this was a purely

research oriented excavation to study the structure and build-up of the causeways into Angkor

Thom. Aside from this scientific objective I suspect it also served the social purpose of

keeping 33 Cambodian labourers employed even during the rainy season, when all

archaeological sites are normally closed.

Team Structure: Ultimate responsibility over the site was in the hands of the director of the

Department of Water Management at APSARA authority, H.E. Hang Peou. He took care of

most of the administration but was never actually on the site, leaving site supervision to the

archaeologists Heng Than and Chourn Bunnath. They were responsible for all the delicate

archaeological fieldwork such as setting up gridlines, documenting the finds or drawing maps

of the site. Of the 33 workers under their supervision, some had fixed tasks such as cleaning

and storing pottery shards, but most just did whatever Than or Bunnath needed them to do at

any given time. Specialized tasks such as the typological examination of pottery shards were

left to specialists at the APSARA office.

Page 14: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

13

Excavation Strategy: To get an idea of the build-up of the causeway a good profile transect of

its interior would be sufficient. Therefore we decided to make a trench, 2m wide and 12m

long, across almost the entire width of the causeway. In the middle of the trench a 1m wide

area was not excavated so as to allow people to pass freely from one side of the causeway to

the other. The complete width of the causeway is 15m but the 3m on its southern edge were

not dug out, only cleaned, because they were completely covered by in situ remains of the

deva statues from the balustrade. Since the structure of the causeway could be studied

anywhere along its ca. 130m length, we simply chose to locate the trench at a place where we

could dig freely without having to cut down any big trees.

Terrain Preparation: Before we could start digging, our 2x12m terrain was cleared of jungle

using grub hoes, axes and hand pruners. Any surface finds, mostly pottery shards and roof

tiles, were collected and stored together. Next, a shelter [Annex 14, p. 40] was built to protect

the site against the thrashing monsoon rain. Though it was quite impressive to see how it was

built using just lumbered trees from the surrounding forest, some nails, rope and a few big

sheets of plastic, I think it would have been a lot more time-efficient, and surely not overly

expensive to use pre-fabricated materials or even standard excavation tents. Than pointed out

that they now used big sheets of colourless see-through plastic for the shelter’s roof instead of

the blue plastic they used to have, and that this was to avoid giving everything underneath a

blue shade when photographing the site. The last step before we could start excavating was

marking the boundaries of our trench with poles connected by white rope.

Digging [for pictures related to this topic, see Annex 14, p. 41]: We used spades and grub

hoes for the rough digging, and then trowels whenever we stumbled upon something delicate

or interesting. I asked Bunnath if they’d ever considered using excavation machines to clear

the topsoil or to refill the trenches upon closing a site. He said that they had thought about it,

and that it would probably make progress a lot faster, but then 20 people would be out of a

job, and since the workers are paid only two dollars a day (the average wage for a Cambodian

labourer) the expenses for APSARA authority were relatively small either way.

Soil Disposal: At the start of our excavation all the soil obtained from inside the trench was

used to build a low rectangular ridge around the site; another measure to stop rain from

flowing in. Once this ridge was completed, excess soil was dumped at a spot about 5m to the

east of the trench - far enough not to obstruct activity around the site but still close so that we

Page 15: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

14

didn’t have to walk too far. The soil was always transported using just small rubber buckets

and several Khmer wicker baskets. I think the use of a wheelbarrow could have made work

considerably more efficient but I didn’t feel it was appropriate to inquire about this to my

supervisors.

Finds Processing [for pictures related to this topic, see Annex 14, p. 42]: Whenever we found

small pottery shards or roof tiles, they were gathered into a bucket per layer of soil.

Afterwards they were rinsed in water with a soft toothbrush, left out to dry in the shade and

then stored in a basket labelled with the remains’ exact provenance (trench name and layer)

and excavation date. When we found carved stones or big pottery fragments these were left in

situ, carefully cleared of the bulk of soil with a trowel and then cleaned with a thick brush.

Only after the soil around these objects had been levelled with a trowel, and either Than or

Bunnath had had the chance to photograph them in their original context, were they moved so

that we could continue excavating. Our excavation didn’t yield any artefacts in need of special

processing.

Site Registration [for pictures related to this topic, see Annex 14, p. 43]: Aside from

photographing the profiles and finds with a standard half metre indicatory scale in place, we

also made interpretative drawings of the ground plan. First we set up a linear measurement

system dividing the entire length of the trench in two 1x12m areas. The reason we didn’t use a

grid measurement system is that the relief on the southern end of our trench was too

complicated; interspersed by trees, small mounds, 2.5m drops to the moat below and very

irregular debris from the balustrade. This made it difficult to set up any kind of measurement

system there so we decided to go with the linear system which was simplest to set up, and

could be easily integrated into the original boundary lines of our trench.

Ground plans were drawn with pencil, in scale 1/20 on A3 millimetre paper. Blocks of laterite

were marked with an “L” and blocks of sandstone with an “S”. The heights of the top and

bottom of each boulder were also notated. For this an instrument based on the principle of

communicating vessels was used (Image 5): a container filled with water is installed at a set

height on the site and a long see-through tube connects the water in the container to a straight

pole attached to a two meter long roll meter. Even though the pole and the tube are moved,

the water inside the tube remains at the exact same level as the water in the container, thanks

to the principle of communicating vessels. Thus, when you place the bottom of the pole at the

vertical depth you want to measure, the distance to the set height of the container is marked

Page 16: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

15

by the water in the tube, and can be measured

using the roll meter attached to the pole. It’s really

quite an ingenious, cheap way of measuring

heights.

Than told me that eventually, when they had

decided the trench was deep enough, they would

also make an interpretative drawing of the entire

profile wall of the causeway’s interior. Then

Bunnath could combine the ground plans and

profile drawing in a computer image using

AutoCAD to eventually become a 3D image of

the build-up of the causeway.

Dating: The original construction date of Angkor Thom and its causeways was already

historically known to be between 1190 and 1210. The French renovations we stumbled upon

in our excavation could be dated to 1925 thanks to the abovementioned reports I found in the

EFEO library. Therefore the site didn’t really require any special dating techniques but Than

told me that the dates would later still be verified and hopefully confirmed by a typological

study of our pottery fragments.

Image 5: Rudimentary instrument to measure heights.

Page 17: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

16

4. Excavation Results and Their Implications

In this section I will discuss the archaeological finds our excavation yielded, the site’s

stratigraphy and the implications these results have towards fulfilling our research objective:

understanding the internal structure of the causeways to Angkor Thom.

4.1. Archaeological Finds

The number of specific objects found during our excavation was very limited since we were

digging inside a massive causeway, underneath the ancient walking level. As a result the

objects we did find were mostly surface finds. These included many parts of the stone

balustrade of the devas pulling the naga, though it seems the majority of the debris ended up

down below, in the moat, where they were recovered by APSARA’s previous excavations.

Probably the most interesting part of the balustrade that we found on this site was the

headdress of one of the devas [Annex 14, p. 44].

Aside from this we found many pottery shards and roof tiles in the causeway’s upper layer,

where it had been renovated by the French in 1925. Judging from the EFEO report these

fragments were probably originally located at the U-shaped laterite “guard towers” next to the

gate (EFEO 1992, 3-6).

Finally we found several big pottery fragments, about a meter and a half below the

causeway’s original surface, lodged into the causeway’s northern wall [Annex 14, p. 45]. The

most complete pot had originally been a jug to serve drinks with.

4.2. Stratigraphy

At the top, spread over only a narrow width in the middle of the causeway, we found the

French road renovation, consisting of a very compact layer of laterite gravel, pottery shards

and roof tiles mixed with loam. Underneath that was a layer of compact sand-loam, then a

layer of coarse sand and finally a layer of clay. It is important to keep in mind that these were

the layers up to 2m deep, the depth we reached before my internship was over. The causeway

was originally elevated 3m above the moat so I do not yet know the entire sequence of layers.

Page 18: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

17

4.3. Conclusions

Than explained to me what purpose he thought each layer of our stratigraphy had played in

the construction of our causeway. According to him a first step in building the causeway

would have been to create a stable substructure, though we haven’t dug deep enough yet to

know the nature of this foundation. Next a thick layer of compact clay was piled on, serving

as the causeway’s core. Then the two laterite boundary walls of the causeway, both 3m high

and around 130m long, would have been built on either side of the clay heap. To achieve a

horizontal causeway surface, and to fill the gap between the clay and the walls, coarse sand

was added, chosen because of its loose structure, which could easily fill all the remaining

cavities. The constructors’ trash was thrown in along with this sand, explaining the broken

pots lodged into the interior side of the northern boundary wall. Subsequently a layer of

compact sand-loam was added on top of the coarse sand to form a firmer basis for the heavy

statue balustrade. Then big laterite blocks would have been used to form the surface of the

road running across the causeway, and as a final majestic touch the sandstone statues forming

the balustrade were put into place (personal communication Heng Than).

It is apparent from in situ archaeological remains at the other causeways of Angkor Thom that

the final surface layer of the causeways indeed consisted of big laterite blocks, but strangely

we didn’t find any during our excavation at East Gate. Than says that they were probably

recycled from the road at a later time, to be used in new building projects. My theory is that

they were used to build the laterite “guard towers” to either side of the gate’s entrance,

because: 1) It is clear that these supposed guard towers were not built at the same time as the

gate, since they are built loosely against it and cover part of its original ornamentation. Than

thinks they were built some 100 years after the gate. If this is true, that means they were built

around 1310, in a period when the Khmer Empire was already in steady decline. 2) Both Than

and the EFEO reports claim that the laterite buildings were probably defensive structures

(EFEO 1992, 3-6; personal communication Heng Than).

These two facts combined lead me to believe that the inhabitants of Angkor Thom destroyed

their own road and used its laterite blocks to hastily expand their city’s defences at a time

when their empire was already too poor to afford new laterite boulders, and was starting to

fall pray to foreign invaders. Than says he hopes I’m right, but my theory is of course still

based on very loose assumptions. Perhaps a mineralogical study of the laterites at the

causeway and the laterite at the “guard towers” could provide more substantial evidence.

Page 19: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

18

5. Acknowledgements

First and foremost I would like to thank Dr. Kros Sarath for putting me in contact with the

right people at APSARA authority, for facilitating the transfer of official internship

documents between Cambodia and Belgium, for helping me out in times of need during my

stay in Siem Reap and for lending me the best mountain bike in town so that I could make it

safely to and from the site each day!

Secondly my utmost appreciation goes out to H.E. Hang Peou for accepting my internship

proposal and generously offering me access to a working space and resources within his

Department of Water Management at APSARA.

Special thanks goes also to Im Sokrithy for being my direct contact at APSARA, for always

responding very timely to my endless chain of mails and for enduring the University of

Ghent’s countless bureaucratic formalities.

Of course Heng Than and Chourn Bunnath have my infinite gratitude for coaching me each

day on the site, for answering all the questions I had about archaeological techniques and

Cambodian archaeology, for sharing numerous interesting documents with me, and simply for

being excellent company! My internship would not have been possible without these two

splendid archaeologists and the practical field techniques they thought me will serve me a

lifetime.

Ma Vonita of the EFEO library deserves a separate mention for helping me find books,

reports and old photographs of the site and for obtaining me permission to use these

documents in my own report.

I would also like to thank all the people of the Department of Water Management and the

APSARA library for showing me around their excavations and bookshelves.

Finally let’s not forget my 33 co-workers! Thank you all for all the help, friendship, laughs

and (very good) Khmer food you shared during my short stay on the site; my internship would

never have been as memorable or fun without you.

Page 20: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

19

6. Bibliography

Daguan Z., 1992. The Customs of Cambodia, Bangkok: The Siam Society.

de Beerski P.J., 1923. Angkor, Ruins in Cambodia, London: Grant Richards.

Dieulefils P., 2006. Ruins of Angkor Cambodia in 1909, Bangkok: River Books.

École française d’Extrême-Orient [EFEO], 1992. Angkor Thom Portes, Rapports d’Angkor

VI, Paris: EFEO, 1-8.

Freeman M., Jacques C., 1999. Ancient Angkor, Bangkok: Asia Books.

Gaucher J., 2010. Angkor, histoire urbaine et archéologie, in: Esparceil A.-J., (ed.),

Archéologues à Angkor. Archives photographiques de l’École française d’Extrême-

Orient, Paris: Paris Musées Editions, 53-57.

Hawixbrock C., 2010. 1182-1219, Jayavarman VII, in: Esparceil A.-J., (ed.), Archéologues à

Angkor. Archives photographiques de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient, Paris: Paris

Musées Editions, 161-223.

Higham C., 2009. Complex Societies of East and Southeast Asia, in: Scarre C., (ed.), The

Human Past. World Prehistory & the Development of Human Societies, London:

Thames & Hudson, 552-593.

Lockard C.A., 1995. Integrating Southeast Asia into the Framework of World History: The

Period before 1500, The History Teacher 29/1, 7-35.

Mabbet I., Mannikka E., Ortner J., Sanday J., Goodman J., 2002. Angkor. Celestial Temples

of the Khmer Empire, New York/London: Abbeville Press Publishers.

Paris P., 1941. L'importance rituelle du Nord-Est et ses applications en Indochine, in: Bulletin

de l'Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient Tome 41, Paris: EFEO, 303-334.

Rooney D.F., 2001. Angkor Observed. A Travel Anthology of ‘Those There Before’, Bangkok:

Orchid Press.

Roveda V., 2000. Khmer Mythology. Secrets of Angkor, Bangkok: River Books.

Snellgrove D., 2004. Angkor – Before and After. A cultural history of the Khmers, Bangkok:

Orchid Press.

Page 21: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

20

7. Illustration Sources

Front page image: EFEO library pictures database, identification code “FIN00396” (1931).

Map 1: “The 5 Gates of Angkor Thom”, consulted on August 21, 2011 at

http://ltocambodia.blogspot.com/2011/03/5-gates-of-angkor-thom.html.

Image 1: EFEO library pictures database, identification code “08543” (1946).

Image 2: “National Museum Cambodia - Collection Stone Objects”, consulted on August 21,

2011 at http://cambodiamuseum.info/en_collection/stone_object/jayavaraman.html.

Map 2: Stone R., 2006. The End of Angkor, Science 311, 1364-1368.

Image 3: EFEO library pictures database, identification code “08433” (not dated).

Image 4: picture made and presented to me by Heng Than.

Image 5: picture made by myself.

Page 22: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

21

8. Annexes

Annex 1 (p. 24): A map of Cambodia in Southeast Asia today (top), compared to a map

of the Khmer Empire under Jayavarman VII (bottom).

Top map from: “World Cultures - French Colonization and Vietnam Wars - National

Borders”, consulted on August 21, 2011 at http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/vietnam-

wars/567.

Bottom map from: “Khmer TimeMap (ACL,2003/2004)”, consulted on August 21, 2011 at

http://www.timemap.net/index.php?Itemid=147&id=124&option=com_content&task=view.

Annex 2 (p. 25): An archaeological map of Greater Angkor.

Map from: Evans D., Pottier C., Fletcher R., Hensley S., Tapley I., Milne A., Barbetti M.,

2007. A comprehensive archaeological map of the world’s largest preindustrial settlement

complex at Angkor, Cambodia, PNAS 104/36, 14277–14282.

Annex 3 (p. 26): An archaeological map of Angkor Thom.

Map from: Gaucher J., 2010. Angkor, histoire urbaine et archéologie, in: Esparceil A.-J.,

(ed.), Archéologues à Angkor. Archives photographiques de l’École française d’Extrême-

Orient, Paris: Paris Musées Editions, 53-57.

Annex 4 (p. 27): A topographic map of the area around our excavation site. East Gate

and its causeway are marked by the red circle.

Map from: GIS Unit (Department of Culture and Research), 2003. Angkor Topographic

Maps, Siem Reap: APSARA.

Annex 5 (p. 28-30): Archaeological drawings of East Gate, its ground plan and its

interior profile.

Images p. 27-28 from: Dumarçay J., 1988. Documents graphiques de la conservation

d’Angkor 1963-1976, Paris: EFEO.

Images p. 29 from: Groslier G., 1926. Arts et Archéologie Khmers. Revue des Recherches sur

les Arts, les Monuments et l’Ethnographie du Cambodge, depuis les Origines jusqu'à nos

Jours, Paris: Société d’Éditions Géographiques, Maritimes et Coloniales.

Page 23: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

22

Annex 6 (p. 31): Photographs of the faces of East Gate.

Images from: Japanese Government Team for Safeguarding Angkor, 1999. Bayon, The Faces

of the Towers: Plates, Tokyo: UNESCO publishing.

Annex 7 (p. 32): Aerial photographs of South Gate.

Images from: EFEO library pictures database, identification codes “12562_a” (1963) and

“12563” (1963).

Annex 8 (p. 33): Photographs of East Gate before and during its clearing of jungle.

Left images from: EFEO library pictures database, identification codes “08428” (not dated)

and “08431” (not dated).

Right image from: EFEO library pictures database, identification code “08446” (1924).

Annex 9 (p. 34): Photographs of a selection of the statues found at East Gate.

Left images from: EFEO library pictures database, identification codes “08469” (1954) and

“03289_1” (1966).

Right images from: EFEO library pictures database, identification codes “16236” (1926),

“08436” (not dated) and “08459” (1925).

Annex 10 (p. 35): Photographs of excavations studying the canals or sewers along and

underneath the road directly to the west of East Gate.

Images from: EFEO library pictures database, identification codes “08466” (1935) and

“08467” (1935).

Annex 11 (p. 36): Remains of the balustrades at East Gate, as photographed in 1909.

Images from: Dieulefils P., 2006. Ruins of Angkor Cambodia in 1909, Bangkok: River Books.

Annex 12 (p. 37-38): Pictures of APSARA authority’s previous excavation inside the

southern moat bordering the causeway at East Gate.

Images from: pictures made and presented to me by Heng Than.

Annex 13 (p. 39): Pictures of animals I was in contact with during my internship.

Images from: pictures made by myself.

Page 24: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

23

Annex 14 (p. 40-45): Pictures of our excavation and the different fieldwork activities.

Images from: pictures made by myself.

Annex 15 (p. 46-47): Pictures of the Eastern Gallery of Angkor Wat, with its 50m long

bas-reliefs illustrating the myth of “the Churning of the Ocean of Milk”.

Images from: “Angkor Wat: Churning the Ocean of Milk”, consulted on August 22, 2011 at

http://www.earthdocumentary.com/angkor-wat-churning-the-ocean-of-milk_angkor.htm.

Annex 16 (p. 48-54): A clean, compact version of the excavation diary I kept while doing

my internship at the causeway of East Gate from July 13 to August 2, 2011.

Page 25: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

24

Page 26: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

25

Page 27: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

26

Page 28: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

27

Page 29: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

28

Page 30: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

29

Page 31: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

30

Page 32: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

31

Page 33: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

32

Page 34: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

33

Page 35: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

34

Page 36: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

35

Page 37: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

36

Page 38: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

37

Page 39: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

38

Page 40: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

39

Page 41: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

40

Page 42: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

41

Page 43: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

42

Page 44: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

43

Page 45: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

44

Page 46: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

45

Page 47: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

46

Page 48: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

47

Page 49: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

48

VAN DAMME Thomas 2nd Year Bachelor of Archaeology University of Ghent, Belgium Academic Year 2010-2011 . Summary of Fieldwork Internship at the East Gate of Angkor Thom Wednesday 13th of July: Three APSARA employees took me to visit the archaeological digs at Victory Gate and East Gate. The responsible archaeologists spoke English quite fluently and put their sites in a thorough historical context before explaining the research goals of their excavations. At Victory Gate the research objective was to determine whether a connection had existed between the moat to the north and the moat to the south of the gate’s causeway. They found no such connection so it could be concluded that water did no pass underneath the causeway, but instead must have been channelled into each part of the moat of Angkor Thom separately. Aside from this not a lot of archaeological material was found at this dig, presumably because the causeway had already been restored by the French in the first half of the 20th century. The excavation at East Gate similarly confirmed that the causeways were indeed massive, and were not constructed to allow water to pass underneath. However, unlike the dig at Victory Gate this excavation yielded a lot of very interesting archaeological material like fragments (arms, torsos, entire heads, …) of the statue balustrade of the Gods pulling the Naga, many small Buddha statues in stone and bronze, pigments, stone axes, etc. This was my first meeting with Mr. Heng Than, who would later, along with Mr. Chourn Bunnath, be my supervising archaeologist. Thursday 14th of July: While waiting for a suitable place to do my fieldwork internship I decided to get a look at the bigger picture so I visited Angkor Thom thoroughly. In the evening I was relieved to get a call from the APSARA office, telling me that I could start my fieldwork internship at a new site on Wednesday 20th of July. Friday 15th of July: I followed the advice of one of the APSARA employees and just visited Angkor Wat. On my way out of the complex I noticed a small workshop where sculptors were carving decoration onto sandstone pillars to use in the renovation works of the temple. The speed and detail these men worked with was simply impressive. Monday 18th of July: I spent the day at the APSARA library to further my understanding of the history of Angkor Thom and to look for documents about the East Gate of Angkor Thom to use in my final report. I found a good GIS map of the area, an archaeological drawing of East Gate by the EFEO, and several books on Angkor’s history in general and king Jayavarman VII’s reign in specific. Tuesday 19th of July: I spent the day at the EFEO library where I found French reports about East Gate from the start of the 20th century, which will be very interesting to describe the research history of the site. They also have a database with 67000+ pictures that I could browse. The pictures I got for “Porte des Morts” (= Gate of Death = East Gate) date as early as 1924 and they’re in amazing resolution so they’ll be very nice additions to the report. I have to say I was very impressed with the extensity and organisation of this library. The librarian also suggested I consult the online EFEO reports database at www.persee.fr.

Page 50: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

49

Wednesday 20th of July: This was my first day on the actual site. Working hours are from 8:00 to 15:00, with a lunch break from 11:00 to 12:30, and APSARA office closes at 17:00 so I can still head there after work if I need to use the library or talk to some people at the office. The excavation is at the top of the causeway leading to the East Gate of Angkor Thom. The fact that it’s on top of the causeway makes it an ideal place to do my internship since it’s one of the few places where our excavation pit won’t flood during rainy season. The objective of the excavation is to figure out how the causeway was built (the different construction layers) and why much of the upper part has collapsed while the foundations remain stable. My supervisors are Heng Than and Chourn Bunnath, both of whom have enjoyed a good education and have even studied abroad. They tell me I can politely call my co-workers Bong Proh (for brother) and Bong Srey (for sister). One of the girls that works there is called Nii and she speaks some English which I’m very thankful for - they also try to teach me some Khmer but I think my pronunciation must be way off, still it’s good fun trying! The first day was interesting because the team of 33 workers was split up into two groups: one to fill up the old dig with soil once more, and one to construct the shelter for the new excavation. This way I got to witness the entire “excavation-cycle” from start to finish. I joined the second group and we first disassembled the old shelter at the excavation in the moat just south of the causeway, and reassembled it into a new shelter on top of the causeway, at a suitable location chosen by Heng Than: a place where we could make a trench across the entire width of the causeway without big trees standing in the way. It was quite impressive to see how the workers built the entire shelter using just cut down trees, some nails, rope and a few big sheets of plastic (see-through colourless plastic, instead of the usual blue plastic, to avoid giving everything underneath the shelter a blue shade). I joined the workers when they headed into the jungle to look for new trees to lumber, carried the trees back out, helped cut them into the right size and finally make them into a shelter. While we were building the shelter, other workers started clearing the excavation site of the vegetation that had overgrown it. Over lunch Bunnath gave me a short tour of East Gate and showed me a restaurant near the Terrace of the Leper King where I could have lunch at Khmer price! By 15:00 we were about halfway finished constructing the shelter. After work I headed over to the APSARA office to share all the documents I’d found so far with Heng Than, and I think he was interested because he told me he wanted me to find more such documents. Thursday 21st of July: Today we continued working on the shelter but around 10:00 Bunnath wanted to show me something so we headed out on his motorbike on top of the boundary wall of Angkor Thom to visit the small south-east corner temple of the ancient city. It was really isolated and beautiful and apparently a French scholar found the four corner temples of Angkor Thom by translating inscriptions, but he never actually travelled to Cambodia to see them for himself. During lunch break I drove my mountain bike to some of the more inaccessible ruins within the Angkor Thom complex, just east of the Terrace of the Leper King. It was a really great experience to be at some of these places without any tourists. After lunch we had to collect more trees from the forest to complete the first part of our shelter (the part that would cover the central part of the causeway) where we would open our first trench. When the shelter was finished Than measured in a rectangle three by five meters in circumference and three meters from the edge of the causeway, and showed me how to set up these boundary lines of our new trench with sticks and white string. The position was chosen to allow an almost complete overview of the width of the causeway, while still leaving a one meter broad passage for people to pass from one side of the trench to the other.

Page 51: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

50

Tomorrow we’ll start digging, and Than expects the surface of the ancient road to be about half a meter underneath the current soil. Friday 22nd of July: When I arrived at the site Than wasn’t there yet so I just followed the workers into the woods again for more trees for the second part of our shelter. On my way out of the trees a big spider, about eight cm in diameter and with green dots on its legs, landed on my head but I didn’t even notice until one of the girls chased it off. Apparently it was poisonous so I’m glad it didn’t bite. When Than arrived he told me to help clear the area just south of our trench. It’s an area about three meters by three meters covered entirely in debris of the Naga-pulling-Gods-balustrade. These were overgrown by trees and smaller plants and covered with a lot of soil so we had to use shovels, grub hoes and axes for the rough clearing, and then trowels, hand pruners and thick brushes for the more delicate work. It was slow progress but still very fun to see the parts of the balustrade emerge from the soil one by one. Than told me that the sandstone used for the balustrade is of the grey sandstone variety that weighs 2.2ton/m³ and was brought here from Phnom Kulen either directly by elephants, or over the Siem Reap river by rafts/boats. At one point a poisonous red centipede crawled out of the soil but one of the workers quickly killed it with a stick. We’re clearing this area just to get an overview of the remains there, Than says they’re not planning on moving any of the debris, unless perhaps if they find a head of one of the Gods, in which case it’ll be moved to safe storage. While we were clearing the area just south of the trench, other workers started digging out the trench itself. We use the earth from the pit to construct a low wall around the trench, to stop water from flowing in. Pottery shards and carved rocks are collected in buckets, cleaned with water and toothbrush, left in the open air to dry, and eventually stored with other shards and rocks from the same layer of soil to analyse at a later date. By 15:00 the workers had cleared about ten cm of soil and Than used his trowel to scrape the floor of the trench evenly so that he could distinguish clearly between different colours and textures of soil. Since there were so many fragments of roof tiles he suspected that the causeway might have been covered with houses at a later stage. As I left the site that was the first time I noticed the four men who keep watch during the night, presumably to ward off looters. Monday 25th of July: In the morning while we were waiting for Than or Bunnath to arrive for instructions, two of the workers took me walking all the way through the moat (interesting how there’s literally no water left in it at all) to the causeway of Victory Gate. They told me that the 24 workers filling up the old trench there would join us at the East Gate excavation once their job was done. When we got back to East Gate we continued clearing the balustrade rubble of plants and soil, and also started clearing just to the west of our rubble pile, where the causeway had collapsed into the moat below. Clearing this part thus gives us a good profile view of the different layers that make up the outer wall of the causeway. Bunnath and I joined my family for lunch, after which they all visited the site. In the afternoon I helped dig out the trench further and we reached a thick, compact layer of laterite gravel mixed with pottery shards, roof tiles, clay and sand on the northern edge of the first trench. Than’s first thought was that we might have already reached the surface of the ancient road, but some of the shards in this layer seem to be a lot younger than the Angkorian period, and the compact layer is only found in the very centre of the causeway, so it’s probably a younger road reparation, perhaps even as young as the French occupation.

Page 52: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

51

While I was drawing up a rough sketch of the site, mentioning the dimensions and so forth in my logbook, Bunnath told me he’d teach me how to draw up the finds and the site in a correct scientific manner on mm-paper tomorrow, which I’m looking forward to! Aside from that my camera is starting to block and malfunction quite frequently and Than told me that it’s probably due to all the dust at the site (he’s had the same problem lots of times) so next time I bring my camera to an archaeological site I should be aware of that. Back in Siem Reap I headed to one of the local markets to buy some safety gloves after seeing those poisonous insects yesterday. Tuesday 26th of July: In the morning we continued clearing the balustrade and digging deeper into the trench just like the previous days. I document everything quite thoroughly on my camera but at a certain point I thought it might be interesting to hand my camera over to some of my co-workers and see what they’d take pictures of. I think it’s funny that they came back with a portrait picture of almost every worker on the site; it won’t be very useful for my report but it’s still a nice thing to remember them by. After a while Bunnath arrived and together we set up a grid of lines to help measure in the different blocks of sandstone and laterite on the mm-paper. This took quite a while due to the irregular terrain and because we needed the grid to match up to previously measured points (marked by nails), drawn up at the old trench (below in the moat). While we were setting up the grid some of the workers caught a two meter long snake further down the road (by now I’m really glad I have safety gloves). When the grid was done Bunnath showed me how to measure in several points of a stone (the most protruding, important ones): the ‘coordinates’ of an object are always measured in reference to two of the gridlines. I got help from two workers who’d measure the distance with a simple roll meter and then say the length, so that I could mark the dot on the correct spot on the mm-paper before connecting the dots on paper with a line that matched the real contour of the stones. They use a lead on a string to correctly judge the horizontal position of the corners of the stones before measuring the distance. The scale of the drawing is 1/20 because that is the highest resolution we can get while still having the entire trench in one A3-sized drawing. Blocks of laterite are marked with an ‘L’, while an ‘S’ marks the blocks of sandstone. All other guidelines can be found in the map’s legend. After work I went to the APSARA office to scan GIS maps and to exchange some documents with Bunnath. He showed me several very impressive AutoCAD drawings and he told me that he could show me how to work with AutoCAD in the following days but unfortunately he was very busy so in the end we never got to it. He also gave me several more documents by the French school and some great files on Preah Vihear and Beng Mealea. Wednesday 27th of July: Today I finished the bird’s-eye view ground plan of our trench the way Bunnath had thought me, and then Than showed me how to measure the top and bottom of each boulder. The instrument they use is based on the principle of communicating vessels: a container filled with water is installed at a set height on the site and a long see-through tube connects the water in the container to a straight pole attached to a two meter long roll meter. Even though the pole and the tube are moved, the water inside the tube remains at the exact same level as the water in the container, thanks to the principle of communicating vessels. Thus, when you place the bottom of the pole at the vertical depth you want to measure, the distance to the set height of the container is marked by the water in the tube, and can be measured using the roll meter attached to the pole. It’s really quite an ingenious, cheap way of measuring heights.

Page 53: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

52

On the ground plan the upper height of each individual boulder is preceded by a triangle facing upwards while the bottom height of each boulder is preceded by a triangle pointing downwards. Than says that eventually Bunnath will draw the profile of the causeway wall, combine it with my bird’s-eye view drawing, process it in AutoCAD and then hopefully in the end make a 3D image of our transect of the bridge. While I was measuring and drawing the site the rest of the team continued deepening the trench and when they were done Than showed me how the soil had changed from compact sand-loam (-> very stable, used at the road level to support the heavy balustrade) to looser coarse sand underneath. Right before finishing work I observed him while he showed me how to level out and smooth the floor of our trench to better observe the textures and colours of the soil, just like he’d done on Friday. Basically you start at the furthest corner and you scrape the ground evenly towards yourself, to avoid having to step on surface you’ve already levelled. Shoes without prints on their soles are a plus here since they won’t leave marks when treading the soil. When the whole floor was levelled he took a few pictures and then it’s done! The smoothing and documenting of the upstanding profiles of our trench will be left to the end of the excavation since this information is not lost in the progress of deepening the trench. After work I headed over to the EFEO library and found two additional early 20th century French reports on East Gate and its causeway, as well as more old pictures. Thursday 28th of July: This morning we finished cleaning up the south trench of the causeway and decided to stop digging there because it was no longer yielding any new finds. So we set up the boundaries for a new two by five metres trench just to the north of our first one and started work there. Meanwhile Than explained to me why he thought the upper part of our trench’s profile looked the way it did: the laterite blocks that should have covered the road were now gone, probably reused in other buildings at a later date, and the old road had been hollowed out by frequent treading. Because of this the centre of the road had been repaired recently, probably by the French, but even those reparations already showed clear signs of being hollowed out on the north side of the causeway. Over lunch I decided to visit the West Gate of Angkor Thom since it’s the only other causeway to the city that hasn’t been reconstructed yet. It was very interesting to see how also there the road had obviously been deeply hollowed out, to about 1.5m deeper than the original road level. At West Gate however some of the laterite blocks that would have covered the entire surface of the road still remain in place, lodged between the roots of big trees. Also the balustrade is in way better condition here than at East Gate and the causeway is less covered in jungle. This probably has to do with the fact that the West Causeway remained a used road throughout the Post Angkor era while the East Causeway was abandoned because it runs dead on the Siem Reap River, and since the causeway at Victory Gate remained the more obvious access route to Angkor Thom on the east side. Than says that the abandonment of the East Gate and its consequent overgrowth by jungle is probably one of the main reasons why the locals call it the “Gate of Ghosts” or “Gate of Death”. The new trench that we’d set up in the morning was chosen at a place where it would hopefully gives us a view of the inside of the northern wall of the causeway. We made very good progress today and by 15:00 we’d reached over a meter of depth. While we were digging a big hairy black spider crawled under the shelter and one of the workers caught it with my safety gloves and put it in a plastic bag to take home for traditional medicine.

Page 54: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

53

Friday 29th of July: Today while digging, we found big pottery shards lodged into the inside of the northern wall of the causeway, so our progress was a bit slower because we had to work more carefully, using only trowels instead of spades and grub hoes. The shards are not removed from the wall immediately but kept in place so that we can take in-context pictures of them. According to Than the biggest shard we found belonged to a pot used to store liquids and some of the smaller ones were for cooking. Also interesting today was the small creature that crawled out of the soil in our trench: to me it just looked like a silver worm but the workers were all scared of it and insisted that its bite was as bad as a snake’s poison. When they cut it in half with a spade the two separate ends kept on moving until someone threw them out into the jungle. Now that we can study about 1.5m depth of the causeway’s interior profile, Than explained to me the different layers and if I understand correctly this is the way he thinks they were constructed: 1. a mound of compact clay forms the base of the causeway 2. laterite walls are constructed along both sides of the clay base 3. coarse sand is thrown in, together with any garbage the constructors might have had (like our broken pots), which easily fills up all the remaining gaps between clay and laterite wall 4. on top of the coarse sand a layer of compact sand-loam is added 5. this sand-loam forms a firm base for the final sandstone balustrade and for the laterite blocks that form the road’s surface 6. a thin layer of fine sand may still have been added on top of the laterite road, making it softer to walk on for barefoot travellers. After work I stayed about half an hour longer on the site with Than and he explained me some of the ways to determine the provenance and age of different pottery shards. He also recommended I consult UDAYA, Journal of Khmer Studies if I wanted to know more. Monday 1st of August: In the morning it rained heavily and both Than and Bunnath were busy at meetings so without instructions we didn’t really have much to do. So instead of sitting around I did some things that might be useful for my final report: I summed up the excavation objectives in my logbook, categorized all the tools used at the site, wrote down the different methods I’d learned and drew up several schematic representations of the build-up of the causeway. The workers shared their lunch with me and in the afternoon, when it had stopped raining, we all helped out the other group with filling up the old trench in the moat. After work I headed over to the APSARA office to get some papers signed, made some copies from books at the library, exchanged my last documents with Than and Bunnath, and then asked them out for diner to thank them for kindly accepting me to work on their site and for teaching me what they know. Tuesday 2nd of August: In the morning our northern trench was covered entirely by big black ants, collecting the meat from a few dead frogs and scorpions that had fallen in over the night. They proved very hard to get rid of but after an hour or so we finally got them out by waving big mats, making enough wind to chase them off. Then we expanded the trench another meter to the north, so as to also get a look at the outside of the north wall. We managed to set up the boundary lines of the new (expanded) trench, clear the vegetation and dig for a few decimetres before my internship was over. At lunch I shared Belgian chocolates with the workers because I wanted to give them something back for sharing their food with me yesterday and simply to thank them for having such a good time with them in the past two weeks.

Page 55: Excavating the Causeway at the East Gate of Angkor Thom

54

Finally I saw the opening of yet another excavation near East Gate, where they’ll be studying the small altar structure just off the road to the east of the causeway. It is clear that archaeology never rests at Angkor, which is very satisfying indeed, considering how much Cambodian heritage is left to be discovered, studied and preserved at this great complex.