Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c44.11.1

c44.11.1

But the real development of the building art in Siam began when the second, or Khmer period was initiated in the tenth century, and the central portion of the country came under the domination of the adjacent Khmer empire of Cambodia. This supremacy lasted for three hundred years, until the thirteenth century, when the Cambodian empire itself began to crumble. In some respects implying a provincial phase of the Khmer style as this flourished at Angkor, none the less the buildings, of this period in Siam display in their character a certain independence of treatment significant of their historical background and earlier traditions. On the other hand some of this variation from the classical type of the Khmers has been traced to the notable infusion into the country of the Mons or Talaings from southern Burma, who brought into Siam the ideals of the Burmese as expressed in the great architectural movement at Pagan which flourished there with such vigour from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries So much so that in the field of the plastic arts this has been referred to as the Mon-Khmer School. Most of the buildings of the Khmer ascription are much ruined, and although examples survive in such old regions as Sawank'alok, Suk'-ot'-ai, and Pitsanulok, two typical temples are to be found in the historical town of Lopburi, the ancient Lavo, eighty miles due north of Bangkok.