Conferences

Banteay Chhmar Conference 2009

August 2009

 

Conference Day 1 - John Sanday from Banteay Chhmar on Vimeo.

The presentation by John Sanday, Field Director, Global Heritage Fund.

Conference Overview

The Second International Conference on Banteay Chhmar was held August 8th – 10th at the sites of Banteay Chhmar and town of Sisophon in Banteay Meanchey Province in Cambodia.

This second conference followed a highly successful first conference held in August 2008 where scholars from all disciplines assembled in the Grand Hotel Siem Reap to discuss the future of Global Heritage Fund’s (GHF) plans for the conservation and repair of the Banteay Chhmar Temple complex.

This Second International Conference focused on site conservation, master planning, historical scholarship, and community-based tourism development. Over 190 people attended the site visit to Banteay Chhmar and the conference hosted by the Governor of Banteay Meanchey, His Excellency Oung Oeung, and co-hosted by the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts (MCFA).

The Banteay Chhmar temple complex was built at the end of the 12th Century. It is an outpost of the better-known Angkor Complex which was part of the great Khmer Empire that extended between present day Vietnam and Thailand. The location of Banteay Chhmar is North of Siem Reap – the road between Siem Reap and Sisophon has recently been upgraded and it takes approximately 1 hour 30 minutes. Thanks to the Governor, the damaged secondary road to Banteay Chhmar has been upgraded especially for the conference, reducing the original journey time by one hour between Sisophon and Banteay Chhmar to 1 hour thirty minutes.

The Banteay Chhmar complex consists of a main temple complex over surrounded by a moat measuring 750m by 850m and occupies a total area of approximately 12 sq Km. Its location is in what appears to be an arid part of the Khmer Kingdom encouraged the development of an ingenious hydrological system for the collection of water and the filling of a large (baray) or reservoir which formed an extension to the East of the temple complex. The temple was built by the great king Jayavarman VII, who was responsible for most of the major temple complexes in Angkor today.

Among Banteay Chhmar’s unique features are the galleries of bas reliefs sculpted on a 750 meter long sandstone wall enclosing the temple complex. The structures within this Enclosure Wall consisted of a complicated variety of tower shrines, courtyards and linking corridors most of which have collapsed. Like these Angkorian structures, Banteay Chhmar was built of sandstone with laterite used as a core building material. Recently the original quarry has been identified just across the border along with a series of feeder canals which brought water from the Dangrek Hills – the watershed and border between present Thailand and Cambodia, as well as the sandstone to the site. All of these topics have been addressed in the Conference.

To learn more about the conference go to: Banteay Chhmar Conference 2009