Thma Puok district, Banteay Meanchey, in the northwest, Cambodia
Banteay Chhmar
late 12th–early 13th century (a temple city of Jayavarman VII)
Far from Siem Reap, a temple of Jayavarman VII still has his faces and a battle frieze, and almost all of its stone is on the ground. The reign is the late 12th and early 13th centuries. The collapse is the next eight hundred years, plus a decade of theft. On the western gallery, eight figures of Avalokiteśvara face the sunset.
Why this is extraordinary
Banteay Chhmar is a temple city in Banteay Meanchey, in the northwest, about 110 kilometres from Angkor and close to the Dangrek hills. It sat on the royal roads that ran to the edge of the territory controlled by Jayavarman VII, who reigned through the late 12th century and into the early 13th. The tentative World Heritage listing places it in the Angkorian period and reads the surviving inscriptions as a temple built with care, its face-towers set over shrines of more than one cult, not over a single god. The complex is Mahayana Buddhist in the way of that reign, and it is full of Hindu images as well, because that is how this court built.
The listing says the temple was consecrated to the memory of Prince Srindrakumara, a son or protégé of the king, and to four companions who had saved him in a battle against the Cham. The reliefs show those fights, on land and on water, and also processions and audiences. On the western gallery, eight multi-armed figures of Avalokiteśvara face the sunset. You stand in the gallery and the figures look west, the way the sun goes down. Avalokiteśvara is the bodhisattva of compassion in the Buddhist account. A west-facing image can be a sunset the builders aimed at, or simply the side of the building the gallery occupies. No azimuth is printed in the sources this room uses. Both readings stay open.
A published account of the 1990s theft says four of a set of eight were cut out and taken, and that two later came back. The same listing says the work shows haste, looks unfinished, and was done in the final years of the reign, after his temples at Angkor, while new forms were still being tried. The faces, a broad smile under a patterned headdress, are the family of the Bayon. One outside account has called the faces here the prototype. The listing’s own order has the Angkor temples first. The sunset figures and the face-towers are not the same carving, and neither one settles the order.
Then the building fell down. A conservation survey reported in the tentative listing found that more than 95 percent of the main temple’s stone, sanctuaries and galleries and walls, had collapsed. The jungle had been at it for centuries, and the looting came on top of that, close to a border. Many carved blocks are still in the pile. A causeway and a half-fallen gallery are what a visit often is.
Jayavarman VII’s architecture is not only the Bayon and the great monasteries inside Angkor. A whole temple city of the same reign stands in the northwest, ruined enough that you can still see how it was made, and damaged enough that part of it is in museums and part of it is missing. What changes is the map of the reign. The faces, the battle, and the figures that look toward the sunset are out here too.
Why it matters
If the faces here were cut before the Bayon’s, this ruin is the sketch for the most famous towers in Cambodia. If they are simply the same reign’s idea used twice, the northwest still holds a narrative gallery most visitors never walk. Either reading starts from stones that are genuinely there. A west-facing Avalokiteśvara can be a sunset the builders aimed at, or simply the side the gallery occupies. No azimuth is printed in the sources this room uses.
The pin is the temple, not the modern town around it. Photographs show a face, a battle relief in its blocks, and a causeway where cattle pass fallen sandstone. The Bayon is the Bayon room. The earlier state temple, Angkor Wat, is Angkor Wat. This one is the road-end version of the same king’s building. The sunset is a direction you can stand in, not a degree this room can print.
Photo tour
3 photographs, unedited. On a phone, swipe the row. Choose one to look closely.
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What is still unexplained
These sit beside the consensus account, with the same visual weight. None of them is marked solved.
Location and dating
- Location
- Banteay Chhmar commune, Thma Puok district, Banteay Meanchey province, Cambodia, about 110 kilometres from Angkor. The pin is the main temple. The western gallery is where the eight figures face the sunset.
- Period label
- Current consensus — open to revision Late 12th to early 13th century, the reign of Jayavarman VII. The tentative listing also notes occupation of the wider site from prehistoric times to the present, which is the town, not the face towers. Current consensus on a Jayavarman VII temple, open on whether its faces were cut before the Bayon’s. The sunset figures do not settle that order.
- How this dating was done
- The date is the reign, read from the style of the faces and the reliefs and from the inscriptions that survive. It is the same art-historical frame as the Bayon. No radiocarbon date of a wooden cramp is the date used here. No azimuth is printed in the sources this room uses, so the sunset is not a date either.
- What could change it
- An inscription that names a king before Jayavarman VII, found in the foundation rather than recut, would move the towers. A collapse layer with a dated object would date the fall, not the building.
What is actually there
- Temple city on the northwest royal road, about 110 kilometres from Angkor.
- Face towers and long bas-relief galleries, including battle scenes.
- Mahayana Buddhist complex of Jayavarman VII’s reign, with Hindu images as well.
- A conservation survey found more than 95 percent of the main temple’s stone collapsed.
- Galleries were cut and stolen in the 1990s. Some panels were later returned.
Open questions
| Question | Status |
|---|---|
| Were these faces cut before the Bayon’s? | One study says yes. The likeness is certain either way. |
| Can the reliefs be put back? | Some stones have been. The tentative listing says very little of the looted sculpture has returned, and much of the carving is still buried in the collapse. |
| Is the town as old as the temple? | The listing says the place was occupied long before and long after. The faces are the reign, not the whole occupation. |
The current narrative
Where publication stands today. It is the best-supported reading, and it is open to revision. It is not a verdict.
The current narrative — open to revision
A temple city of Jayavarman VII
In the late 12th and early 13th centuries Jayavarman VII built Banteay Chhmar as a great Mahayana complex on the northwest road, with face towers and narrative reliefs in the manner of his work at Angkor. Eight multi-armed figures of Avalokiteśvara face the sunset on the western gallery. That can be a sunset the builders aimed at, or simply the side the gallery occupies. No azimuth is printed in the sources this room uses.
What supports this
- The tentative listing ties the site to his reign and to the royal-road network.
- Faces and battle galleries match the art of that reign at the Bayon.
- Inscriptions, though damaged, are what the listing uses to call it a deliberate temple rather than a later pile.
What pushes back
- More than 95 percent of the main temple’s stone has collapsed, so any plan is partly a reading of a rubble field.
- The wider site was occupied before and after the reign. Not every wall in the commune is his.
What would settle it
The reign and the art hold. The standing fraction is small, which makes the ruin honest and the reconstructions careful work. The theft, the two figures that later came back, and the sunset reading all stay part of the same building.
Emerging narratives
Other published readings. Each may be right. None is adopted here unless the evidence carries it.
An emerging narrative
These faces were the trial for the Bayon
The face towers at Banteay Chhmar were cut first, and the Bayon follows them. This is the prototype, not a provincial copy. The sunset figures are a separate question, and they do not order the towers.
What supports this
- A study of the two sets of towers has argued that this one comes first.
- The remote temple was less altered by later changes of state religion, so an early form could survive here when Angkor was recut.
What pushes back
- The tentative listing puts this temple in the final years of the reign and refers to his earlier temples at Angkor.
- Both belong to one reign. A photograph of a smile cannot order them.
- Collapse and loss make a stone-by-stone sequence harder, not easier.
What would settle it
A real scholarly argument, and not a fact this room needs to close. The family resemblance is enough to put the two temples in one conversation. A west-facing Avalokiteśvara can be aimed at the sunset or can simply occupy the gallery's side. No azimuth is printed in the sources this room uses.
Should the current view be reevaluated?
Consensus holds well
Jayavarman VII’s temple, the faces, and the reliefs hold. Which tower was cut first is open. The collapse and the thefts are part of the object, not a reason to skip it. The eight figures facing the sunset stay open too, with no azimuth printed in the sources this room uses.
What drives this
- Face towers and battle galleries of his reign, 110 kilometres from Angkor.
- A conservation figure of more than 95 percent of the main temple collapsed.
- Looted panels, some returned, many not, including two of the eight figures that later came back.
This is the museum’s own weighing of the evidence. It is not a visitor vote, and it is separate from the slider.
Weigh it yourself
Anonymous. Nothing here is stored except on this browser. Your lean does not change the assessment beside it.
Visitor lean so far — not evidence. On this browser only; a shared tally is not collected.
If the contested reading is right
What would follow if a reading that is not the consensus turned out to be true, and what could settle it. This explains the stakes. It does not adopt the reading.
The faces here came first
The Bayon would be a development of a northwestern experiment, and this ruin would move from “another Bayon” to the place the idea was worked out. The sunset figures would still need their own reading.
Why it is still worth a test
The study’s sequence of towers, published against the inscriptions, so a visitor can see the order and not only the smile. The western gallery's sunset is not that sequence.
Sources
- The Archeological complex of Banteay Chhmar UNESCO World Heritage Centre, tentative list. The reign, the distance, and the figure of more than 95 percent collapsed.
- Temple conservation at Banteay Chhmar The complex as a late 12th-century commission, with face towers and bas-reliefs.
Image credits
- A face in the temple stone. The same calm, broad features look out from the towers at the Bayon. Here they are in a ruin 110 kilometres from Angkor, in the northwest. The sunset figures are on another wall. . Anandajoti Bhikkhu, Photo Dharma, CC BY 2.0. Shown unedited.
- A battle across the joints of the blocks. Trees, raised weapons, and bodies on the ground. The wall is a stack of separate stones, which is how a gallery can be both a narrative and a thing that can be dismantled. . Csufroxxx, CC BY-SA 4.0. Shown unedited.
- The causeway, with the balustrade broken into individual stones and cattle using the path. The temple is a ruin inside a living landscape, not a cleared park. . Anandajoti Bhikkhu, Photo Dharma, CC BY 2.0. Shown unedited.