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Angkor Wat - Angkor Thom
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Environ -
Map of Angkor
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Angkor by
Radar
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Ta Prohm
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Ta Prohm,
Angkor Cambodia, airlines Cambodia, anchor
Cambodia, Angkor, Angkor 12th century
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Temple
Raiders
Seen in the half-light, the
crumbling towers of Ta Prohm temple are a vision
from another world. The massive walls, locked in the
muscular embrace of vast tree-root systems, offer a
sense of the exhilaration that would have been felt by
the French explorer Henri Mouhot when he stumbled upon
the Angkor temples more than 140 years ago. He didn't
hesitate to rate his discovery as "grander than anything
of Greece or Rome".
The ancient capital of the
Khmer
empire is one of the archaeological masterpieces of the
world and the spiritual and cultural heart of
Cambodia.
It is also the victim of a slow
and painstaking rape, an assault mounted with chisels
and drills by impoverished locals for the benefit of
wealthy collectors in the West.
Hidden by the bamboo shoots
on the approach to the little-used northern gate,
an
intricately carved bas-relief of sandstone lotus leaves
decorates a section of the wall bordering the path.
Lying in front of it yesterday were a cluster of
motorcycles hastily thrown down by a gang of five men
who vaulted the wall and disappeared on hearing the
approach of footsteps.
In each of the more than 50
niches beautifully carved into the stone, there was
nothing left but scarred rock. The tell-tale signs of
chiseling were all that remained where once a
cross-legged Buddha would have sat elsewhere, carved
panels had tumbled onto the
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jungle floor, heads had been
clumsily hacked off and only amputated legs were visible
where the torso of a lost goddess had been hauled away.
The Khmer Buddha's are by now on their way to the
antique shops of Bangkok,
or the auction houses of the
West. They are bound ultimately for secret collections
of Angkorian art in an illicit and thriving trade that
is consigning one of the wonders of the world to a slow
death.
"It is tragic, and criminal," said Anabel Ford, a
Californian archaeologist on a project to photograph the
spring equinox at Angkor. "There is no way to know if it
happened 20 years ago or 20 minutes ago, but there is no
mistake that beautiful pieces are missing."
The temples of Angkor were built between the 9th and
14th centuries, when Khmer civilization was at its
height and the empire stretched north to Yunnan in China
and from Vietnam westwards to the Bay of Bengal.
Unparalleled in south-east Asia, they are a living
testament to the extraordinary creativity of the Khmer.
The writer and broadcaster Dan Cruikshank became
increasingly concerned at the situation in Angkor Wat
during the filming of Around the World in 80 Treasures.
He said he was immediately struck by the vulnerability
of the more than 100 temples stretched over 77 square
miles of dense jungle.
"Most of it is not guarded or policed. Even at Angkor
Wat itself it is very easy to pick something up.
There
is a lot still unexcavated and you can just pick it up.
It's a gigantic problem. It would be easy if one were
determined to knock off the odd head. There's no one
around but the occasional tourist."
Cruickshank said that the Western collectors are as much
to blame for the looting as the gangs that bring the
stone saws to bear on the priceless carvings. The Khmer
treasures are, he says, a victim of their own beauty.
"The quality of the 12th century workmanship is
outstanding. There is a tremendous fusion of Hindu and
Buddhist art with Indonesian sensibility. There's
nothing else like it and it's a loss to mankind at
large."
The rape of Angkor is not strictly a modern phenomenon
and looting has been underway since the complex was
abandoned in the 16th century and the court moved to
Phnom Penh.
The destruction increased with the rise of the Khmer
Rouge. In 1971 Pol Pot's guerrillas moved into Angkor
Wat, lit fires in the galleries, installed rocket
launchers and started slicing the heads of sculptures.
They sold their bounty across the border into Thailand
to help finance the war effort.
But it was after the fall of the Khmer Rouge that the
pace of looting really picked up. Without the guerrillas
to ward off potential thieves, the rape began in
earnest.
An attempt to move up to 7,000 of the most valuable
pieces to the conservation office in the nearby town of
Siem Reap in the early 1990s merely exacerbated the
conflict. In February 1993 thieves wielding machine-guns
and rocket launchers attacked, killing one guard; they
left with 11 of the most valuable statues.
Cambodian officials say they are doing all they can.
They claim that the presence of squads of monument
rangers clutching walkie- talkies and checking all
visitors for their $20 per day photo ID passes, has
helped to dampen the looting spree. But conservation
officials admit they are fighting an uphill battle.
"Vandalism has multiplied at a phenomenal rate," the
conservation agency said in a recent statement, with
thieves "employing local populations to carry out the
actual thefts. Heavily armed intermediaries transport
objects, often in tanks or armored personnel carriers."
Today Angkorian antiquities can be browsed in
air-conditioned comfort in Bangkok's River City complex
or Singapore's Tanglin shopping centre.
There are even
persistent rumors of the existence of a catalogue
containing detailed photographs of Angkorian
statues and
bas-reliefs, allowing wealthy Westerners to order
specific items still in-situ. And three countries in the
world still allow antiquities to be purchased without
documentation: Australia, Japan and Switzerland. On the
black market, a life-sized Buddha from Angkor, can fetch
at least $250,000.
According to Roland Eng, a former US ambassador to
Cambodia who recently returned, two severe factors
ensure that the looting continues: the parlous state of
the economy and the exorbitant prices that Angkorian art
fetches on the international market.
"The country remains very poor. The army is very poor,"
he told The New York Times. "We have to encourage people
not to buy antiques when they cannot trace the source."
Growing cultural awareness and tighter controls - such
as the American ban on trade in illicit Cambodian
artifacts passed in 2003 -
hold out some hope that
future generations will see the wonders left in the
jungle by the Khmer kings.
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But the overwhelming sentiment is one of sadness at the
irreparable damage which Cambodians have been driven by
poverty and the greed of foreigners to inflict on their
own heritage.
King Norodom Sihanouk, who abdicated in favour of his
son last year, contrasts the ancient glory with the
modern theft of anything that might have a market: "It
is very sad the Cambodian people were so masterful and
skilful but now they plunder their own history."
Author
Jan McGirk Copyright Independent Newspapers UK Limited
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company.
All rights Reserved
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