1st Edition
The Angkorian World
The Angkorian World explores the history of Southeast Asia’s largest ancient state from the first to mid-second millennium CE. Chapters by leading scholars combine evidence from archaeology, texts, and the natural sciences to introduce the Angkorian state, describe its structure, and explain its persistence over more than six centuries.
Comprehensive and accessible, this book will be an indispensable resource for anyone studying premodern Asia. The volume’s first of six sections provides historical and environmental contexts and discusses data sources and the nature of knowledge production. The next three sections examine the anthropogenic landscapes of Angkor (agrarian, urban, and hydraulic), the state institutions that shaped the Angkorian state, and the economic foundations on which Angkor operated. Part V explores Angkorian ideologies and realities, from religion and nation to identity. The volume’s last part reviews political and aesthetic Angkorian legacies in an effort to explain why the idea of Angkor remains central to its Cambodian descendants. Maps, graphics, and photographs guide readers through the content of each chapter. Chapters in this volume synthesise more than a century of work at Angkor and in the regions it influenced.
The Angkorian World will satisfy students, researchers, academics, and the knowledgeable layperson who seeks to understand how this great Angkorian Empire arose and functioned in the premodern world.
The Prologue and Chapters 2, 10, 15, 23, 30 and 32 of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
Prologue: An Introduction to the Angkorian World
Mitch Hendrickson, Miriam T. Stark, Damian Evans with Roland Fletcher
PART I: CONTEXTS
1 An Environmental History of Angkor: Beginning and End
Dan Penny &Tegan Hall
2 Texts and Objects: Exploiting the Literary Sources in Mediaeval Cambodia
Dominique Soutif and Julia Estève
3 ‘Invisible Cambodians’: Knowledge Production in the History of Angkorian Archaeology
Heng Piphal, Seng Sonetra and Nhim Sotheavin
4 The Mekong Delta Before the Angkorian World
Miriam T. Stark and Pierre-Yves Manguin
5 The Early Capitals of Angkor
Jean-Baptiste Chevance and Christophe Pottier
6 Angkor’s Multiple Southeast Asia Overland Connections
Kenneth. R. Hall
7 Angkor and China: 9th–15th Centuries
Miriam T. Stark and Aedeen Cremin
PART II: LANDSCAPES
8 Forests, Palms, and Paddy Fields: The Plant Ecology of Angkor
Tegan Hall and Dan Penny
9 Angkor and the Mekong River: Settlement, Resources, Mobility, and Power
Heng Piphal
10 Trajectories of Urbanism in the Angkorian World
Damian Evans, Roland Fletcher, Sarah Klassen, Christophe Pottier and Pelle Wijker
11 Angkor's Temple Communities and the Logic of Its Urban Landscape
Scott Hawken and Sarah Klassen
12 Angkor as a "Cité Hydraulique"?
Terry Lustig, Jean-Baptiste Chevance and Wayne Johnson
PART III: STATE INSTITUTIONS
13 Angkorian Law and Land
Tess Davis and Eileen Lustig
14 Warfare and Defensive Architecture in the Angkorian World
David Brotherson
15 Āśramas, Shrines, and Royal Power
Chea Socheat, Julia Estève, Dominique Soutif and Edward Swenson
16 Education and Medicine at Angkor
Rethy Chhem, Damian Evans, Chhom Kunthea , Phlong Pisith and Peter D. Sharrock
PART IV: ECONOMIES
17 Angkor’s Economy: Implications of the Transfer of Wealth
Eileen Lustig, Aedeen Cremin and Terry Lustig
18 The Temple Economy of Angkor
Heng Piphal and Sachchidanand Sahai
19 Angkor’s Agrarian Economy: A Socio-Ecological Mosaic
Scott Hawken and Cristina Cobo Castillo
20 From Quarries to Temples: Stone Procurement, Materiality, and Spirituality in the Angkorian World
Christian Fischer, Federico Carò and Martin Polkinghorne
21 Crafting With Fire: Stoneware and Iron Pyrotechnologies in the Angkorian World
Mitch Hendrickson, Ea Darith, Chhay Rachna, Tabata Yukitsugu, Phon Kaseka,
Stéphanie Leroy, Yuni Sato and Armand Desbat
22 Food, Craft, and Ritual: Plants From the Angkorian World
Cristina Cobo Castillo
PART V: IDEOLOGIES AND REALITIES
23 Gods and Temples: The Nature(s) of Angkorian Religion
Julia Estève
24 Bodies of Glory: The Statuary of Angkor
Paul A. Lavy and Martin Polkinghorne
25 ‘Of Cattle and Kings’: Bovines in the Angkorian World
Mitch Hendrickson, Eileen Lustig and Siyonn Sophearith
26 An Angkor Nation? Identifying the Core of the Khmer Empire
Ian Lowman, Chhom Kunthea and Mitch Hendrickson
27 The Angkorian House
Alison Carter, Miriam T. Stark, Heng Piphal and Chhay Rachna
28 Vogue at Angkor: Dress, Décor, and Narrative Drama
Gillian Green
29 Gender, Status, and Hierarchy in the Age of Angkor
Trude Jacobsen Gidaszewski
PART VI: AFTER ANGKOR
30 Perspectives on the ‘Collapse’ of Angkor and the Khmer Empire
Damian Evans, Martin Polkinghorne, Roland Fletcher, David Brotherson, Tegan Hall,
Sarah Klassen and Pelle Wijker
31 Uthong and Angkor: Material Legacies in the Chao Phraya Basin, Thailand
Pipad Krajaejun
32 Mainland Southeast Asia after Angkor: On the Legacies of Jayavarman VII
Ashley Thompson
33 Early Modern Cambodia and Archaeology at Longvek
Martin Polkinghorne and Yuni Sato
34 Yama, the God Closest to the Khmers
Ang Choulean
35 Inarguably Angkor
Penny Edwards
Biography
Mitch Hendrickson is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, USA. He worked as an archaeologist in northwest Mexico, the Canadian Plains, and High Arctic before shifting his focus to Cambodia in 2001. His initial research on the development and role of the Angkorian road system enabled him to develop two ongoing projects in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts on the technological transformation that enabled expansions of the Khmer Empire and understanding religious transition at the site of Preah Khan of Kompong Svay.
Miriam T. Stark is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, USA. Her 40-year career includes fieldwork in North America, the Near East, and Southeast Asia; she launched her first field project in Cambodia in 1996. Her Cambodian research, through multiple projects in collaboration with Cambodia’s Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, focuses on protohistoric to Angkorian period urbanism, early state formation, and political economy.
Damian Evans is Senior Research Fellow at the École française d’Extrême-Orient in Paris and an Honorary Associate in the Department of History, School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry at the University of Sydney. He is involved in a diverse array of projects across Southeast Asia encompassing archaeology, heritage, and the earth sciences, and he has initiated and overseen archaeological projects in Cambodia since the late 1990s. His work focuses on using earth observation technologies such as satellite imagery, radar, and lidar to understand the relationship between humans and their environments from the deep past to the present day.
“From the urban sprawl of the ancient city to the minutiae of pottery and temple bas-reliefs, The Angkorian World succeeds in offering a multi-dimensional, polyvocal account of this South East Asian polity. While this volume is a dense and comprehensive insight into the state of Angkorian studies at present, prospective readers, be they scholars of premodern Asia or lay enthusiasts, need not be daunted. This important collection makes the intricate tapestry of Angkor an accessible and rewarding read.” Joanna Wolfarth - South East Asia Research
