Andy Brouwer's Cambodia Tales
Angkor
Borei
Have
you visited the pre-Angkorean archaeolgical site at Angkor
Borei, in the southern province of Takeo? Thought to be
the site of Vyadhapura, the last capital of the Funan King
Rudravarman in the sixth century, the Lower Mekong Archaeological
Project (LOMAP), a combined effort from the University of Hawaii,
the East-West Center and the Royal University of Fine Arts, is
working hard to unearth evidence of much earlier occupation of
the area. In and around the town of Angkor Borei, excavations are
taking place in people's backyards and in orchards, while a short
distance south of the town lies the hill of Phnom Da, on which
the ancient Khmers built religious structures at different points
in the past. A small museum has been set up in the town and
houses a number of interesting artefacts found by the LOMAP team,
headed by Dr. Miriam Stark. However, the major pieces of pre-Angkorean
sculpture found in the region are on display in the National
Museum in Phnom Penh. If you've been to the Angkor Borei site, I'd
like to hear from you. E-mail me at andy.brouwer@btinternet.com. I asked Dr. Stark
for an insight into the LOMAP project and she has kindly penned
the article below especially for Cambodia Tales.
Introduction
to the Lower Mekong Archaeological Project
Dr. Miriam Stark (pictured below),
Department of Anthropology, University of Hawaii ( 23 August 1999)
Throughout the millennia, the Mekong river
has created a vast cultural and natural landscape that dominates
much of mainland Southeast Asia. The Mekong river originates in
Tibet and flows south through Burma, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia.
In the Mekong's lower reaches, the river branches out into a rich,
low-lying delta that has an area of 75,000 square miles (or 194,250
square km). Today, the Mekong delta is one of Asia's great rice-growing
regions, and covers southern Cambodia and southern Vietnam.
To
archaeologists and historians, the Mekong delta is also famous as
the heartland of one of the earliest civilizations in mainland
Southeast Asia. Scholars continue to debate whether early states
in the region emerged in response to ideological influence,
maritime trade or long-term endigenous developments that
coincided with Indian contact. We now believe that complex
politics developed in this region during the early historic
period, approximately 200 B.C. and A.D. 500. Chinese documentary
sources inform on the political organization of the Mekong delta
during the early historic period. Called Funan by visiting
Chinese dignitaries in the 3rd century A.D., it reputedly
contained walled and moated urban centers that housed wealthy
rulers and artisans. Among these are Oc Eo (in Vietnam) and
Angkor Borei (in Cambodia). During the 1930s, a French geographer
named Pierre Paris used aerial photographs to study canal
networks that radiated outward from the ancient centers of Oc Eo
and Angkor Borei. He found, first, that canals linked ancient
centers with smaller satellite settlements like this one during
the early historic period. Paris also discovered that canals may
have linked Angkor Borei with Oc Eo over a distance of 90
kilometers.
Despite
persistent French interest in the art, history and epigraphy of
this area, we still know little about the ecology and economy of
early historic period settlements in Cambodia's Mekong delta.
Documentary evidence tells one narrative of kings, of missions to
China, and of contact with Indian traders and Brahmins. Yet
archaeological evidence tells another story entirely, and focuses
on understanding landscape structure and change in the context of
developing political complexity. Louis Malleret's brief
excavations in the 1940s at Oc Eo revealed an elaborate system of
water control, monumental architecture, and rich material culture.
Malleret's excavations uncovered complex brick architecture and a
variety of ceramics. Malleret's contact with villagers near Oc Eo
also yielded an impressive array of material culture that
included Persian trade goods, Indian pottery, and Roman coins
that date to the first century A.D.
Civil strife and
other research priorities between the 1950s through 1970s slowed
Vietnamese research on the early historic period in the Mekong
delta. Vietnamese archaeologists resumed work on the "Oc Eo
Culture" in the mid-1970s, and have now worked at more than
seventy sites that date to this period. Much of what we know
about the early historic period in the Mekong delta, then,
derives from work on the Vietnamese side of the delta rather than
from the Cambodian side. In Cambodia, previous researchers have
studied the Mekong delta using aerial photographs and remote
sensing images, but no archaeological work has been possible in
southern Cambodia for the past four decades because of
international geopolitics and civil strife. It is only in the
last five years that archaeologists could resume their field
studies in Cambodia's Mekong delta. The University of Hawaii/East-West
Center/Royal University of Fine Arts Cambodia Project has
concentrated teaching and research efforts at Angkor Borei since
1995. The UH/EWC/RUFA Cambodia Project conducted an
archaeological field school for Cambodian students at Angkor
Borei in 1995. Research at Angkor Borei was begun by the Lower
Mekong Archaeological Project (LOMAP) in 1996, and we completed a
second field season in 1999. The following section describes some
of LOMAP's archaeological findings from work at Angkor Borei.
THE 1996
FIELD SEASON - Three objectives guided the 1996
fieldwork. We sought to document the site's shape and the range
of its archaeological features, to evaluate the integrity of
subsurface materials and description of the site's stratigraphy;
and to collect samples for dating portions of the archaeological
site. The field crew completed a preliminary site map that they
had begun in 1995, which suggests that the ancient site of Angkor
Borei is at least 300 hectares in area and may have been
associated with many features found beyond the city's wall (particularly
to the south of the city). This site map has been a useful tool
for locating features in different areas of the large ancient
city. We also tested two areas of the site using 1 m x 2 m
excavation units to obtain radiocarbon samples to build a ceramic
sequence. Results of our radiocarbon dating suggest that Angkor
Borei was settled ca. 400 B.C., or 500-600 years earlier than the
Chinese documentary accounts of the area. Perhaps populations
moved into the delta several centuries before the region became
sufficiently important in the international trade world to be
noticed by the Chinese. Finally, crew members uncovered portions
of one of the fifteen or more collapsed brick structures that had
been mapped inside the city's walls. The structure we
investigated had been mined in recent years for bricks, and was
incomplete. However, we could identify the general parameters of
this brick construction, and villagers have recovered stone
sculptures and inscribed stelae from other brick features on the
site with this general shape.
THE 1999 FIELD SEASON
- LOMAP continued its investigations of Cambodia's early historic
period in 1999 by conducting archaeological excavations at Angkor
Borei. A small team of archaeology professors and students from
the University of Hawaii (UH) and the Royal University of Fine
Arts in Phnom Penh (RUFA) worked together for six weeks from
January to March. Research focused on three important loci at the
site: 1) the centrally situated mound upon which Wat Komnou sits
today; 2) the ancient city wall; and 3) the ancient water
features, which are primarily moats (photo shows the moat on the east
side of the site) and
reservoirs. Dr. Miriam Stark, LOMAP's co-director from the
University of Hawaii, coordinated excavations at the Wat Komnou
mound and the ancient city wall. Dr. Paul Bishop, a geologist
from the University of Glasgow, investigated the age and
morphology of the city's ancient water features.
Excavations
at Wat Komnou Mound - LOMAP crew members excavated a 2 x
3 meter pit on the southern slope of the mound on which Wat
Komnou is located. This mound is located in the central area of
the ancient city, making it a likely spot to have been an
important residential area. Also, this mound represents the
highest ground within the old walls. The mound likely developed
through long-term human occupation and refuse disposal, as
successive building construction episodes added height to the
area residents modified the land to minimize flood damage in this
central area. LOMAP archaeologists were able to dig at the Wat
Komnou mound because villagers had accidentally uncovered human
bones beneath the surface in this area in 1998 as they removed
large amounts of dirt for landfill. With the permission of local
landowners, officials and Cambodia's Ministry of Culture,
archaeologists began excavating here in January and continued
excavations until mid-March. By early April, we blocked the area
off with a brick wall and roofed over to prevent damage to the
unit during the rainy season.
In the six weeks
of excavations, the archaeologists were able to dig down almost 4
meters below ground surface. By far the most common artifacts
collected from the Wat Komnou mound site include broken pieces of
pottery (potsherds) and animal remains (primarily animal bones
and teeth). Archaeologists found potsherds and animal remains
continuously from top to bottom of their excavation pit. This
suggests that the site has been occupied by humans almost
continuously for perhaps 2500 years. Besides a wealth of
potsherds and animal bones, several other kinds of artifacts were
found in much smaller abundance. The only conclusive evidence of
jewelry discovered was the recovery of several hundred small,
colorful glass beads. Further analysis is necessary to determine
whether these beads were produced locally or imported from
elsewhere, but excavations elsewhere in the delta suggest local
manufacture of these goods. These beads have been found all over
Angkor Borei and some examples are on display in the museum.
Shapeless chunks of slag (waste products from metal production)
were found in some abundance throughout the depth of the
excavation. Small ceramic pellets were also found throughout the
excavation sequence. These pellets resemble those made today by
the children of Angkor Borei and used for hunting small game with
a slingshot.
One of the most
compelling aspects of the 1999 excavations lay in the exposure of
human remains more than 3 meters below ground surface. The
abundance of these skeletons and the care with which they were
buried leads us to conclude that this is an ancient cemetery. Use
of relative dating techniques suggests that these burials date to
the 1st century AD or soon thereafter. Most of the skeletons were
discovered in the same positions that they had been placed at the
time of their burial, although a few were found as jumbles of
bones in no apparent configuration. Grave goods accompanied most
of the skeletons, and these may have been placed with the body by
friends and relatives of the dead during the burial ritual. The
grave goods include intact ceramic pots and pig skulls, both of
which were found on and around the skeletons. The discovery of
the Angkor Borei cemetery is important for many reasons. It
provides a window into the early Funan period of Cambodia a
period about which very little is known. Also, it is the first
cemetery of inhumations (interred bodies, not cremations) that
has ever been excavated in Cambodia using modern archaeological
techniques. Thus, this is the first opportunity to scientifically
examine an ancient skeletal population from Cambodia.
Excavations
of the City Wall - Another portion of the 1999 fieldwork
involved excavations at the ancient city wall. Working closely
with Dr. Paul Bishop (University of Glasgow), archaeologists
documented and excavated a section of the wall that surrounds
Angkor Borei. An earthen and brick masonry-capped wall (ca. 4 m
in width at its base) surrounds the ancient settlement of Angkor
Borei, and many intact sections remain. Work concentrated in the
southeastern portion of the site for logistical reasons. Most of
the wall in this area is intact, except for a section in the
southeast corner of the site that was reportedly destroyed during
the American bombing of Cambodia and a wall cut that a farmer
made to drain his fields. To minimize further damage to the wall,
we expanded the existing wall cut to study the wall construction
sequence, and then excavated a 1 m x 2 m trench below the surface
of the cut to study the pattern of earthen mounding. Although we
were not able to recover radiocarbon samples from our excavations,
Dr. Bishop's interpretation of the wall's stratigraphic profile
suggests that the wall was constructed in two episodes. The first
episode involved building an earthen embankment around the
settlement's perimeter, perhaps in conjunction with the
excavation of the inner and outer moats that are still visible in
certain areas of the site. The second episode, which may have
occurred substantially later in time, involved the mounding of
cultural debris on this earthen embankment to create a flat
surface, and the construction of an approximately two-meter high
masonry brick wall to cap the earthen embankment. The wall that
is now visible, therefore, may reflect multiple construction
episodes. We have submitted a brick sample from the wall to Dr.
David Sanderson of the SURRC Luminescence Laboratory (Glasgow,
Scotland) for thermoluminescence dating. Initial results from
this dating suggest that the luminescence determination indicates
a late' age for the wall; the next step involves refining the
dating estimate.
Investigation
of Hydraulic Features at Angkor Borei - Work with Dr.
Bishop also probed Angkor Borei's ancient water features. The
third component of the 1999 field season involved studies of the
ancient hydraulic features in and around Angkor Borei. Most
prominent of these are the moats that flank the city wall, and
the canal segments (still visible in aerial photographs) that may
extend as far south as Vietnam. Dr. Paul Bishop augered areas of
the moats and canals to obtain data for geomorphological study,
and collected samples for paleoethnobotanical analysis.
Eventually, the study of these samples should inform on the age
of the canals and the moat, and may tell us more about the
construction sequence of the settlement. Earlier French scholars,
relying on a small data base, assumed that Angkor Borei served as
a capital city during the 2nd through 6th centuries, and that its
canals linked Angkor Borei to the rest of the delta and
specifically to port settlements like Oc Eo. These earlier
scholars did not attempt, however, to discover the absolute age
of any of these archaeological features; doing so is a major goal
of the Lower Mekong Archaeological Project.
We have at least
two hypotheses about Angkor Borei's settlement that we will
evaluate with scientific data collected during Dr. Bishop's field
investigations. The first hypothesis assumes that Angkor Borei
was founded in the late centuries B.C. as a small settlement and
grew through time into a large regional center with all its
trappings (monumental architecture, large population, craft
specialists). A second, and alternative, hypothesis maintains
that a large population founded the settlement initially, and
that the various features we now see across the site were all
developed as part of one broad construction program. This latter
scenario seems less likely to us than the former, but only
scientific analyses (chronometry, geomorphology, paleoethnobotany)
can provide the kinds of data necessary to select the appropriate
scenario.
A final part of
the geomorphological research involved coring a large reservoir
in the site's southeastern corner to collect ancient sediments.
Scientific analysis of these sediments will help us learn what
the local vegetation looked like at various points in the
settlement's history. These data, in turn, may suggest to us
various practices of the ancient population. For example, if we
see a pattern of changing vegetation throughout the settlement's
history, it may be possible that growing populations gradually
depleted their local environment of trees for construction and
firewood. Another possibility is that we might see botanical
changes associated with the conversion of brush land to
agriculture and, conceivably, even the development of intensive
agriculture.
Although field
investigations are the most visible and exciting aspect of
archaeological research, they only represent the beginning of
research on a project. This is certainly the case with LOMAP,
where the most interesting results are yet to come from various
analyses of the materials we have excavated, mapped, augered, and
cored. Not only do we expect to refine our settlement chronology
through analyses of these materials, we should also be able to
develop a ceramic chronology for use at the regional level and
will also learn a great deal about human biological variability
during the early historic period. We are scheduled to return to
Angkor Borei for a final field season from May-July 2000, and
will continue to investigate these important aspects of the
development of the Mekong delta.
- Click on LOMAP to view the web site of
the Lower Mekong Archaeological Project.
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