Fig. 1. Angkor Wat, Cambodia. Exterior, West., 1888. Part of a collection of lantern slides used as visual aids for an introductory undergraduate course at Harvard University on East Asian culture and history. It was developed and in 1939 by John K. Fairbank and Edwin O. Reischauer, who also acquired most of the slides.

Fig. 2. Angkor Wat, Cambodia. Air View., 1888. Lantern slides

Located in Cambodia at Angkor, the capital of the Khmer empire, Angkor Wat is a temple widely known as a grand iteration of Buddhist monumentation and world heritage site. Though understood today as a Buddhist site, this was not always its primary identity. Originally a Vishnuist royal funerary temple in the early 12th century patronized by Khmer king Suryavarman II, Angkor Wat was reanimated as a Buddhist site in the 16th century after a brief period of occupation by Thai invaders. From the 19th century to the present, the French Protectorate and post-independence Cambodia deeply transformed the site. Under French rule, archeaologizing orientalist representations which denied the living heritage of the site informed conservation practices and management tactics; the legacy of French colonialism is felt still in the present day state of the site.

What is particularly interesting about Angkor Wat is its palimpsestic accumulation of reliefs throughout multiple centuries—a process which was discontinued with French stewardship of the site. The decorative program of Angkor Wat is incomplete. Though the architectural components of the temple retain their original form, the decorative reliefs and carvings on the basic architecture of the monument are comprised of images accumulated through multiple centuries. Originally an unfinished temple to Vishnu doubling as an ancestral funerary site for Khmer royalty, the memory of the eras through which Angkor Wat has lived have left material traces on the monument in the form of scars and damage from the period of Thai invasion at the end of the 13th century, added Brahmanical reliefs from the Khmer return to Angkor in the 16th century, as well as added Buddhist components such as stupas in the Angkor Wat complex from the 16th to 19th centuries. The accumulation of historical memory at Angkor Wat takes the form of an entirely additive process until the era of French Indochina.

Fig. 3. Shahn,Ben. Untitled (Bas-Reliefs in a Temple at Angkor Wat, Cambodia). February 28, 1960-March 1, 1960. Brahmanical reliefs.

Until the French protectorate assumed authority over the site, all original components of the temple had been preserved from its past as a temple to Vishnu. Fragments of broken statues from the Thai invasion at the end of the 13th century become incorporated into the body of the temple as well during the restoration of Angkor Wat in the 16th century when the temple becomes reanimated as a Buddhist site. Remarkably, these reparations finish the Brahmanical tale depicted in the reliefs on the walls, rather than adding jataka scenes, despite the Buddhist repurposing of the site, in what King Ang Chan, the reigning Khmer king at the time, called a completion of the unfinished business of the ancestors. The incorporation of damage and broken sculptural pieces into part of the existing site as well as the additive nature of all the changes made during this new Buddhist period in the lifetime of Angkor Wat make the site a unique reservoir of historical memory.

Fig. 4. Churning of the ocean of milk. 2019. http://ttnotes.com/churning-of-the-ocean-of-milk.html

Yet, despite the accumulation of centuries worth of decorative carvings, the temple is still incomplete. For example, the depiction of the churning of the ocean of milk (see figure above), a particularly important creation myth in Hindu cosmology, on the walls of the third enclosure galleries at Angkor Wat, contains many unfinished areas. In particular, the area surrounding the central Vishnu image in the narrative relief is surrounded with chisel markings that are distinctly differentiated from the otherwise polished and smooth exterior of the reliefs, suggesting that these markings were likely not purposeful stylistic choices, but rather signs that the reliefs were incomplete. The current incompleteness of the temple is perfectly consistent with the accumulative spirit of the site—Angkor Wat has remained a fixture through centuries, collecting memories as people and kingdoms ebbed and flowed through its walls.

In many ways, Angkor Wat is still collecting and retaining the traces left behind by those who move within its belly; however, colonial influence has interrupted the additive accumulation of decorative components in the temple. During the late 19th and early 20th century, French intervention removed many items and images from later time periods that were added to Angkor Wat, leaving only a small portion of images left intact—those which were deemed most original and authentic. Once again, the fetish of authenticity and origin in archaeological practices resurfaces as a method of study/preservation that forecloses the possibility of viewing of an architectural site as constituted not only by its original form but also by its transformation and continuous development in later eras. Instead, the original identity of the site is privileged, denying the ways in which the identity of the site has been transmuted and shifted through historical processes and human touch.

When the French arrived, Angkor Wat was an active Buddhist site with numerous additive architectural components, such as brick stupas in the courtyards of the complex, magnificent tapestries, and statues. But today, there are only a handful of images left. French intervention removed many of the items in Angkor Wat, especially images from later time periods. Angkor Wat was cleared of fragments not considered to be part of the original compound; the complex was also cleared of structures considered incongruous to the complex by French archeologists, particularly those made with perishable materials—which often had religious or ritualistic importance. Part of French colonial interest in Angkor Wat was the relocation of failed colonial desires from India to Cambodia. Projecting its desires onto Angkor Wat, the colonial regime imagined the site to be a symbolic monument to France's colonial success over Britain. Furthermore, the French arrived with conviction that they were the saviors of this culture. Systematic and scientific documentation of these sites locating them in the remote past, not the present, was part of the colonial archaeological endeavor to remove the agency of inhabitants / commit a sort of cultural murder. A premium was placed on the antiquity of the site and the life of the monument and life of the people still using the monument were disregarded.

Fig. 5. Handlon, James. Untitled (image of Buddha statue in Angkor Wat complex), 2012.

However, since Cambodian independence in 1953, the religious life and local worship at the site have begun to reblossom. Though removed statues and stupas can never return, and though French stewardship set the tone for managerial practices which make it difficult, even today, for worshippers to add to the complex in the same way they once did in the past, the site is nevertheless returning to life.

Fig. 6. Handlon, James. Untitled (image of worship at Angkor Wat temple), 2012.