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)