Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c43.34

c43.34

The table indicates that the art of Cambodia reached its meridian in the twelfth century, a century of marked architectural activity, distinguished by numerous notable building undertakings, but particularly by the erection of the temple of Angkor Vat, the grandest achievement of the Khmer builders. But before this architectural culmination was attained, the building art progressed logically through its various stages of development beginning with what has been referred to as the Prehistoric Phase. Of this initial period few material records have survived, but from the subsequent character of their buildings, it is surmised that the early Khmers, living on low ground raised their huts above the swamp of the delta by means of horizontal layers of logs readily obtained from the exuberant forest growth in their vicinity. This primitive system was so indelibly impressed on their consciousness that it survives in the distinctive parallel course of torus mouldings forming the excessively high plinths characteristic of the stone structures at a much later date. Moreover that these original habitations were roofed with terracotta tiles arranged on a flexured slope with transverse runnels to carry off heavy rain, is also evident from the same method, but copied in stone, being employed to roof the corridors of the more sophisticated buildings which followed. Then the abnormally steep staircases leading from terrace to terrace in these later edifices seem to be reminiscent of the ladder-like flights of steps peculiar to wooden houses elevated on piles. Other rudimentary elements may be identified, subsequently converted into elegant stone features, but these are some of the main evidences associating the Khmers, in their prehistoric existence, with timber-built dwellings raised above the low-lying deltaic region of the Mekong.