We know Angkor as the ruins of a city with grand temples of
exemplary architecture in Cambodia. But for conservationist Jiang
Huaiying, it is a big jigsaw puzzle.
A holy place first for Hindus and then for Buddhists, Angkor is
one of the Seven Forgotten Wonders of the Medieval Mind. But when a
Chinese conservation team, led by Jiang, was invited by the
Cambodian government and UNESCO in 1997 to repair the 900-year-old
ChouSay Temple, the place had nothing to show its glorious past,
except around 5,000 pieces of stone lying around.
?
In a decade, the team has returned ChouSay to some of its former
glory, even though no blueprints or descriptions were
available.
The Chinese government has approved the US$1.86-million
conservation work, which now awaits the ratification of the
Cambodian government and UNESCO, a top official at the State
Administration of Cultural Heritage said yesterday.
After ChouSay, the team will move to the much larger and
historically significant Ta Keo Temple, Deputy Administration
Minister Dong Baohua revealed. The project will begin later this
year and extend to 2014.
The Ta Keo Temple was built between the 10th and 11th centuries
to "replicate" Khursag Kurkura, or "mountain of all lands", in the
Hindu scriptures. The five pagodas on a three-layer terrace
represented that mountain.
Emperor Suryavarman II built most of the structures in Angkor,
including the grand Angkor Wat Temple dedicated to the Hindu god
Vishnu, between 1113 and 1150. The huge pyramid temple is regarded
as the supreme masterpiece of Khmer architecture.
The Ta Keo Temple, however, is older, built by Emperor
Jayavarman V about 150 years before Angkor Wat. It is made of
sandstone, with a central tower surrounded by four turrets. The
fact that the temple was built with giant pieces of stone, many of
them weighing over 5 tons, makes the project all the more
challenging.
"It's hard to imagine how the medieval Cambodians carried the
stones into the jungle and laid them one upon another," Jiang
said.
The Ta Keo project budget has not been finalized but could top
40 million yuan (US$5.13 million), a huge amount for a conservation
project in China, said Shen Yang, director at the China National
Institute of Cultural Property. A majority of the team members,
including Jiang, hail from the institute.
Apart from the Angkor temples, Chinese conservationists are
working on an ancient palace in Ulan Bator in Mongolia.?
A further report from the State Cultural Relics Bureau indicated
that Jiang Huai Ying and Liu Jiang were awarded the Order of
Moniseraphon by the Cambodian government for their conservation
work at Angkor. Standing as one of Cambodia’s highest awards, the
ceremony was held by APSARA (Authority for the Protection and
Management of Angkor and the Region of Siem Reap) on January
17.
(China Daily January 26, 2007)
