ARCHITECTURE OF CAMBODIA
ARCHT. CLARISSA L. AVENDAÑO
The Kingdom of FUNAN
I. Inhabited in the 3rd c. by the FUNAN kingdom
• Kaundinya went from India to Cambodia and married a local princess
who was one of the NAGAS (mythical beings part cobra). The son was
the first founder of the Kauninya Dynasty
• 2nd Kaundinya arrived from the 5th c. to revive Indianized customs nad
was the beginning of the Kaundinya Jayavarman rulers.
The First KHMER Kingdoms
• Khmers were probably vassals of the Funans
• Developed in the 5th c. North of the Tonle Sap Lake
THE ANGKOR PERIOD
• High Quality workmanship (harmony and clarity of lines) also in elegance
of the decorations and ornaments.
• The "mother of all temples" - Angkor Wat. No photograph can quite
capture the immensity of this monument (which may be a tomb as
well as a temple.) Some of the apparent grandeur of the complex is
due to clever perspective. The tip of the central tower is only 65
meters high, although its peak is more than 200 meters above the
ground. However, many of the other statistics of the temple are still
quite impressive. The temple is surrounded by a 200 meter wide
moat (that's more than two football fields to you Americans). You
cross the moat on a wide stone causeway to reach the outer
wall, which itself is 5.5 kilometers long. Once you pass through the
main gate in this wall, another causeway 350 meters long, leads to
the inner sanctuary of the temple.
he most delicate images of
sacred Khmer women, called
by the Sanskrit terms apsaras
or devata, are preserved in
the Bakan of Angkor Wat.
Photo Kent Davis