The Khmer Empire and Its Road Network 2 of 2

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EVENT INFORMATION
Date: Thursday, 12 February 2015
Time: 3.00 – 4.30 pm
Venue: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, Seminar Room 2

ABOUT THE LECTURE
From the 9th to 15th century, the Khmer Empire ruled over a large area of Mainland Southeast Asia, which was bordered by China to the north; the Malay Peninsula to the south; the Mon state to the west; and Champa and Daiviet to the east. The empire’s capital was located in the Angkor area and consisted of a concentrated series of monumental structures. These included a large capital city complex which encompassed a 3×3 km area (now called Angkor Thom), and the state temple of Angkor Wat—the largest Hindu temple in the world to date. The Angkor complex also consisted of huge eastern and western water reservoirs, canal systems, hundreds of other smaller temples,as well as a road network from the Angkor capital to other provinces within its domain.

In order to solidify control over this vast area, the rulers of Angkor constructed many roads that connected the Angkor capital to its former capitals as well as new conquered territories. There were two roads to the east and northeast of Angkor which connected to the former capital cities of Sambor Prei Kuk, Kok Ker, and Wat Phu. To the west and northwest, there were two roads that had connections to Phimai, Sdok Kak Thom, and probably Lopburi. The late 12th century Preah Khan temple inscription tells us that there are 121 rest houses and 102 hospitals located along these roads and provincial cities. The inscriptions also clearly mentioned 17 rest houses along the 245-km-road from Angkor to Phimai, which was considered the northwestern region.

The Living Angkor Road Project (LARP), a Cambodian–Thai joint research project, has been conducting research along the said road since 2005. The team has already identified 32 ancient bridges, 385 water structures, 134 temples, 17 rest houses, 8 hospitals, a number of iron smelting sites, hundreds of stoneware ceramic kilns, and many habitation sites.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Dr. EA Darith is Visiting Senior Fellow at NSC, ISEAS. He is also Deputy Director of the Department of Conservation of the Monuments Outside Angkor Park, APSARA (Authority for the Protection and Management of Angkor and the Region of Siem Reap), Cambodia. He has coordinated projects betwee APSARA and other international teams from Japan, France, USA, Australia, Hungary, Thailand, and Singapore.

Darith received his BA from Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh, his MA from Kyoto University, and PhD from Osaka Ohtani University. His research interest is in Southeast Asian ceramics, especially Khmer ceramics in Angkor period from 9th to 15th centuries. He has excavated more than 10 stoneware kilns and other monument sites in Angkor region since 2000, and has reconstructed the history and development of Angkorian ceramics and kilns. He plans to further study the scientific analysis of Angkorian stoneware with counterparts from Hawaii University, Santa Clara University (USA) and New England University (Australia) to better understand the origin of Khmer production and the expansion
of the use of Angkorian stoneware.

Darith is also a lecturer of Angkorian Stoneware Ceramics at the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh, and teaches history of Cambodia and Khmer Studies at Pannasatra University. He has received training from Arizona State Museum, Freer and Sackler Museum at Smithsonian, and University of Pennsylvania Museum. He is working on creating an artefact management system in Angkor which will aid in the proper care of all artefacts excavated from the Angkor World Heritage Site.