Nicky Sullivan

 

Understanding the lives of those who ruled over and lived under the Khmer Empire motivates the teams that comb Cambodia looking for clues about their politics, economics and rituals. But with relatively few materials or records to work from, examination has largely been a patchwork of studies of finished elements such as the architectural ornamentations, bas reliefs and sculptures that remain centuries after they were first revealed.

 

One team has taken a different path: trying to understand the dynamics of economic activity through a particular craft specialisation, and the political and financial resources that fed one specific stone sculpture workshop buried within the sandy laneways and forested tracts to the west of the Bakong temple, 15 kilometres southeast of Angkor Wat.

 

This is the first Angkor-era stone sculpture workshop to be discovered, excavated and described in an academic paper. Among the layers of debris, the researchers deciphered a 400-year-long story of creation, power, population and skills management that led to surprises and, inevitably, even more questions.

 

read more http://www.phnompenhpost.com/post-weekend/unearthing-angkorian-secrets-ancient-workshop

 

 

-- © Copyright Phenom Pen Post 08/10

A little known fact, did anyone ever notice that the pitch of the staircases in Angkor and the historic remains in Peru are pretty much identical, not surprising since they were all erected by a band of roving Irish stone masons assisted by their hardworking band of navvies :)