At the heart of the last great capital of the Khmer Empire stands the Bayon, its towers carrying more than two hundred serene stone faces gazing out in every direction. Angkor Thom, the walled city Jayavarman VII raised after Angkor was sacked, remains one of the most densely carved religious complexes to survive from South-East Asia’s classical age.
At a glance
Angkor Thom is a walled city covering nine square kilometres, built by Jayavarman VII, the only Khmer king to rule as a Mahayana Buddhist rather than a Hindu. The city rose after the Cham sacked Angkor in 1177, and its defences, an eight-metre wall ringed by a moat, were raised in direct response to that attack.
At its centre stands the Bayon, whose fifty-four towers each carry four faces, for a total of 216 carved into the sandstone. Each face stands roughly a metre and a half to two metres tall. Whether they represent Jayavarman VII himself, the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, or both at once, remains debated.
Key facts
- Founder: Jayavarman VII, who reigned from 1181 to 1218 CE
- Bayon towers: 54 towers bearing four faces each, 216 faces in total
- Bas-reliefs: two gallery levels at the Bayon carry more than 11,000 carved figures
- South Gate causeway: lined with 54 gods and 54 demons pulling a naga serpent, depicting the churning of the Ocean of Milk
- Heritage status: part of the Angkor UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed in 1992
History
The Khmer Empire dominated mainland South-East Asia from 802 to 1431 CE, with its royal capital at Angkor from 889. Jayavarman VII, who came to the throne after the Cham sack of Angkor in 1177, launched a building programme larger than that of all previous Khmer rulers combined, raising Angkor Thom and the Bayon alongside Ta Prohm, Preah Khan, Ta Som and Banteay Kdei.
Angkor was eventually sacked by the Thai kingdom of Ayutthaya in 1431, after which the Khmer capital moved to Phnom Penh and the jungle gradually reclaimed the site. The French naturalist Henri Mouhot brought Angkor to wider European attention in 1860. The wider Angkor site, including Angkor Thom, was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992.
What you see
Many visitors see Angkor Wat at sunrise before moving on to the Bayon in the early morning, when the light picks out the gold in the sandstone faces. Within Angkor Thom, the Terrace of the Elephants runs for some three hundred metres, its walls carved with elephant figures, while the neighbouring Terrace of the Leper King carries an outer wall with an official royal narrative and, behind it, an inner wall of more intimate carved scenes that remained hidden for centuries.
The Bayon’s two bas-relief galleries repay slow looking: the inner gallery draws on Hindu mythology, while the outer gallery turns to everyday twelfth-century life, showing markets, fishing, cock-fighting, childbirth and military processions.
Practical information
- Access: the Angkor complex lies a short distance from Siem Reap town and is commonly reached by tuk-tuk, with a day rate agreed in advance
- Entry: an Angkor pass covering one or more days is required and is bought at the main ticketing centre; many visitors buy it the evening before and enter at dawn, so check current arrangements with the official Angkor Archaeological Park authority
- Timing: early morning offers the clearest light on the Bayon’s carved faces
Getting there
Siem Reap is served by direct flights from regional hubs including Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Hong Kong. From Siem Reap town, the Angkor complex is a short tuk-tuk ride away, and an Angkor pass is needed to enter the archaeological park.
Nearby
- Angkor Wat — a short distance south; built by Suryavarman II in the twelfth century, with a five-tower design and an 800-metre continuous bas-relief gallery, covered by the same UNESCO inscription
- Ta Prohm — close to Angkor Wat; a temple left substantially unrestored, its stones bound up in the roots of silk-cotton and strangler fig trees, and known as a filming location for the 2001 Tomb Raider film
- Banteay Srei — further north; a tenth-century temple carved from rose-pink sandstone, notable for the fineness of its decorative carving
Sources
- Wikipedia, Angkor Thom
- Wikipedia, Bayon
- Wikipedia, Jayavarman VII
- Wikipedia, Ta Prohm
- UNESCO, Angkor, World Heritage Site reference 668
- David Chandler, A History of Cambodia, Westview Press, 2008
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