Archive & History: The invisible Cambodians of Angkor Wat
- La Rédaction
- 17 hours ago
- 5 min read
Many Cambodians who explored the temples were never credited for their participation, and according to some, the problem has persisted for a long time.
When we think of archaeology in Cambodia, names such as Henri Mouhot, who popularised the Angkorian temples through his journals, may come to mind. Connoisseurs may think of Étienne Aymonier, the first archaeologist to systematically survey the ruins of the Khmer Empire, or Lunet de Lajonquiere, who carefully catalogued the temples.
But we rarely think of the Cambodians who played an essential role in helping them with their work. That was until a conference of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association (IPPA) a few years ago in Siem Reap, where archaeologist Heng Piphal gave a presentation entitled ‘Invisible Cambodians’, telling the story of the workers, assistants and archaeologists who helped the French during the Protectorate period and beyond.
After the conference, Mr Piphal mentioned the many books that refer to French explorers and curators in Angkor but fail to acknowledge Cambodian involvement:
‘My presentation aimed to highlight how Cambodians have been involved from the very beginning.’
In this presentation, which was partly based on the findings of Penny Edwards' book, Cambodia: The Cultivation of a Nation, 1860 - 1945, Piphal showed photographs collected from the École française d'Extrême-Orient — the French institute responsible for the study of Asian societies — revealing Cambodian workers and assistants who helped the French excavate the temples.
Mr Piphal said at the time: ‘You always see Cambodians at the excavation sites, whether they are coolies, paid workers or assistants to the curators, but most of their names have never been mentioned.’
He added that even though some of these names appear in the original daily reports archived by the French curators — which have never been published — they have never been credited in French publications: ‘You really have to sift through the information to find them — you have to go back to the original report to find their names, otherwise they don't really exist.’
He also referred to a notebook found at the Guimet Museum in Paris that contained scribbles about a trip to Laos by one of Aymonier's colleagues — a Cambodian named Ros. He said at the time: ‘Aymonier based his book on this notebook.’
According to Mr Piphal, these were not just simple labourers or ‘coolies’; some Cambodians were reportedly in charge of teams carrying out excavation and restoration work.
Their boss would only visit them once or twice a day, but most of them dug and reported back to their boss. The archives show that the excavation work on the central tower of Angkor Wat in the early 1930s was carried out by a Cambodian who then reported his findings to his French superior.
Furthermore, none of the French heads of the excavation teams were in fact officially trained archaeologists, he explained:
‘When they worked at Angkor, they trained to become archaeologists, but they were not professionals. The first archaeologist responsible for the conservation of Angkor was Bernard Philippe Groslier in the 1960s.’
So why were so many Cambodians erased from their own history? One obvious answer may lie in the structures of colonial power. In his presentation, Piphal highlighted what he calls ‘the idea of colonial legitimacy,’ or the importance of making the French protectorate appear legitimate in the eyes of the French public. According to the Cambodian archaeologist, ‘To provide legitimacy to the French public, you had to argue that the French protectorate was here for a good reason, and one of those reasons was the restoration of Angkor Wat.’
But Piphal does not want to blame foreigners. He believes it is crucial to take into account the social context surrounding archaeological practice in Cambodia. Firstly, the lack of formal education in the past made it difficult for Cambodians to get involved in archaeological work itself. Before the arrival of the French, there was no formal education in archaeology, nor even an understanding of how the Angkorian temples had been built.
As a result, even if the work of Cambodian archaeologists had been documented, it would have been unlikely to be read by many in the Kingdom.
Son Soubert, senior lecturer in archaeology at the Faculty of Archaeology in Phnom Penh, agrees that Cambodians at the time had no training in archaeology:
‘The first class of archaeologists trained at the Faculty of Archaeology was trained after independence, when King Father Norodom Sihanouk created all these universities.’
According to him, if Cambodians had been mentioned in archaeological publications, professors and students at the Faculty would have sought to decipher who was involved in the excavations.
Mr Soubert studied archaeology and classical literature at the Sorbonne in Paris in the 1960s and 1970s, and also conducted research at the Department of Indology at the French Institute in Pondicherry. He believes that, unlike in Cambodia, Indian researchers or pandits were mentioned in publications at the Pondicherry Institute. Son Soubert returned from France to Phnom Penh in 1991 and began teaching at the faculty in 1993.
Piphal also draws parallels between the ‘invisible Cambodians’ and what political philosopher Adam Smith called the ‘invisible hands’ of workers in any capitalist system:
‘You can look at the invisible hands within a chain of factories, so you get the products from the factories, but you don't know who made them — the workers become invisible in that sense.’
In 1965, the Royal University of Fine Arts was established in Phnom Penh, with a faculty of archaeology. However, like all academic and artistic institutions in the Kingdom, its early years of glory were cut short by a decade of civil war and the Khmer Rouge regime.
According to Mr Piphal, the faculty's first graduating class had only two or three graduates, and most of the next generation were killed by the Khmer Rouge. After the end of Pol Pot's regime, there were only three Cambodian archaeologists left.
H.E. Chuch Phoeurn — one of the Cambodians who survived the Khmer Rouge era, who works at the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts — reopened the faculty in 1989 with the help of Cambodians in France, French professors and a UNESCO project that hired international professors from France, Japan and the United States to teach there.
Today, according to Mr Piphal, the archaeology sector in Cambodia has found its feet. The first IPPA conference in 2014 welcomed 700 international speakers, including Cambodians. Piphal described the conference as ‘a good example of a strong team of Cambodian archaeologists’.
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