Abstract
This paper discusses the spatiotemporal formation process of the Archaeological Park of Angkor near Siem Reap in current day Cambodia. Within the time frame of the French rule in Indochina, it focuses on the first travel guidebooks created between 1900 and 1950, the most important of which were written by the first Conservators General of Angkor, Jean Commaille, Henri Marchal, and Maurice Glaize. This paper argues that these guidebooks were a powerful control tool used by the colonial authorities to realize a gradual and finally almost all-encompassing figuration of the spatiotemporal facets of the park for tourism purposes. Accompanying the administrative and legal delimitation of the park and within a traceable development from undefined conventions (1900–1909) and early attempts of vulgarization (1909–1913), to mechanization (1920s–1930s) and finally standardization (1940s–1950s), these guidebooks developed graphic maps, walking diagrams, circuits, itineraries, and a time-dependent parcours for the park and inside the temples to regulate the visitors’ object selection, body movement, time management, and visual orientation. Together with the structural conservation work affected in situ by the scientific staff, these guidebooks contributed considerably to the progressive decontextualization of the Angkorian temples from a living site of local social practice and (trans)regional Buddhist pilgrimage to a stylized heritage reserve of dead colonial archaeology—a conflict that became even more visible with the effects of globalized mass tourism after the inscription of the Archaeological Park of Angkor to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1992.
[now we have to follow] the goal to make the ancient temples of Cambodia known to our readers who have not yet seen them and to enlarge their desire to visit them. On site, the access and conditions of a stay at the ruins improve very fast […] Now we hope that the numbers of visitors increase in proportion to the sacrifices of the administration for making an excursion interesting. What we need now is that everybody who takes his journey to Angkor itself has a certain notion what he is supposed to see and that he is not left alone in the unknown world… [The visitor has to have] a general impression about the ruins of Cambodia […] we need to publish vulgarizing notes on Angkor. […] we have to develop] a method to gradually constitute a homogeneous ensemble and to adopt a rational program […] a chronological order (Commaille 1910, 1–2) (Jean Commaille, the first Conservator General of Angkor, 1910).
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Notes
- 1.
All translations of French and German sources into English are by the author of this article.
- 2.
For an interesting overview on travel-based literature on Angkor see Rooney (2001).
- 3.
“As much as guns and warship, maps have been the weapons of imperialism. Insofar as maps were used in colonial promotion, and lands claimed on paper before they were effectively occupied, maps anticipated empire. Surveyors marched alongside soldiers, initially mapping for reconnaissance, then for general information, and eventually as a tool of pacification, civilisation, and exploration in the defined colonies” (Harley 1988, 282). Editor’s note: From this perspective, guidebooks for the popular tourist industry explaining “dead ruins” follow a comparable strategy as “prescriptive texts” of colonial instructions for conservators (compare the contribution by Sengupta in this volume), picturesque photography (compare the contribution by Weiler), and hybrid temple reconstitutions of plaster casts from Angkor in occidental museums (see Baptiste in this volume). All these typically colonial modes of “archaeologizing” heritage, as it is indicated by this volume’s title, serve as a good basis for discussing the actually circulating virtual models of architectural heritage (compare the other case-studies in this volume).
- 4.
This threefold approach towards the production of space was convincingly introduced by the groundbreaking 1974 publication by Lefebvre. The quotations refer to Lefebvre’s introductory chapter “Plan of the present work” (Levebvre 1991, 1–65).
- 5.
All these quotations are from part III, chapters VII (Walking the city) and IX (Spatial stories) (de Certeau 1988, 91–127).
- 6.
Editor’s note: New approaches in conservation and architectural preservation discuss the aspect of living heritage in a very different way and try to incorporate local knowledge into new strategies of conservation (see the contributions by Warrack, Chermayeff, Sanday in this book) and describe the local stakeholders inside the park as dynamic users of the ancient land-use patterns (see the essay by Luco in this volume).
- 7.
See Delaporte’s drawings in the essay by Pierre Baptiste in this volume.
- 8.
For one of the classic thoughts on preparing the occidental view for oriental sites through exhibitions, see Mitchell (1989).
- 9.
This committee published its first Bulletin in 1901 and tried to cover all sorts of economical, diplomatic, ethnic, social, and religious information about the French world overseas (Zimmermann 1901).
- 10.
“Ang-kor Vaht. Le ‘temple de la cité royale’ est encore de nos jours un sanctuaire du bouddhisme, là campent des pèlerins dévots et un peuple de bonzes. Ce sont ces derniers qui sont chargés de l’entretien des ruines et de la garde des idoles. Ang-kor Vaht est le monument khmer le mieux conservé” (Madrolle 1902, 54–55).
- 11.
Even if he admits “to have understood nothing,” Carpeaux reports of hundreds of monks and Cambodian people in the famous cruciform gallery of Angkor Wat during New Year celebrations with “répresentation thèatrale, chants, danses, et comédie” (Carpeaux 1908, 225–227).
- 12.
Editor’s note: These first virtual versions of aerial views and ideally reconstituted temple structures are quite comparable with actual virtual models derived from aerial photographs (compare Gruen’s essay in this volume, also the Angkor images in Nguonphan’s contribution).
- 13.
A short biography on Commaille in: Drège 2002, 107–110.
- 14.
“Assurer l’existence et les moyens d’étude à Angkor aux visiteurs n’est pas suffisant, il faut faciliter le voyage, encore aujourd’hui difficile et seulement possible pendant une courte partie de l’année […] Il est inutile d'insister sur les avantages qu’il y aurait pour toute l’Indochine et en particulier pour Phnom-Penh à attirer sur Angkor la visite des globe-trotters. Or, à cette heure, peu de visiteurs étrangers font ce voyage. Alors que j’ai vu les registres du Boroboudour couverts de noms non seulement Hollandais, mais Anglais, Américains, Allemands, etc., les Français, et à cause seulement de leur présence en Indochine, représentent la grande majorité des rares visiteurs d’Angkor. Il y a à cela plusieurs raisons; la première, c’est l’ignorance même de ces ruines; […] Mais c’est aussi, même auprès des gens éclairés, la difficulté d’atteindre Angkor; c’est aujourd’hui presque une exploration, et tandis qu’on sait d’avance, en quittant Londres ou New York, à quel moment et comment on pourra aller visiter les Pyramides ou l’île de Philé en Égypte, l’on ne sait d’Angkor ni à quel moment ni comment on pourra s’y rendre. Obtient-on des renseignements détaillés? Le délai est si court pendant lequel on peut faire agréablement cette excursion, qu’il est difficile d’enfermer cette date précise, dans le cadre d’un grand voyage. Il faut donc pour attirer les visiteurs étrangers: 1° faire connaître l’intérêt des ruines, et c’est à la Société d’Angkor qu’une telle tâche revient naturellement; 2° établir une communication aisée avec Phnom-Penh; 3° faire qu’elle soit permanente” (Parmentier 1908, 68).
- 15.
Chronique (Cambodge). 1907–1909. Bulletin de l’École française d'Extrême-Orient 7: 419–423; 8: 287–292 and 591–595; 9: 413–414.
- 16.
“Pour rendre à l’ensemble du monument son aspect primitif, on devait d’abord songer à reconstituer l’unique avenue dallée. Il fallait aussi envisager la nécessité de déloger les bonzes dont les habitations masquent toute la face Ouest de la première galerie, dite ‘galerie historique’, et interdisent une vue générale. Nous espérons qu’il sera possible de les décider à transporter leurs demeures au Nord ou au Sud, en dehors de la terrasse de pourtour” (Chronique (Cambodge). Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 8 (1908): 593).
- 17.
See their constituting guidelines in Bulletin 1 (1908), edited by Société d’Angkor in Paris. Editor’s note: This issue of relocation from so-called heritage sites is a common feature in colonial and other violent regimes (compare Pichard’s essay on Pagan under the military regime in this volume). Over the course of the last decades, a new appreciation of the local stakeholders, has, however, changed these severe actions (compare the contributions by Warrack and Luco in this volume).
- 18.
“Ma première étape doit être Angkor. Les grandes ruines de l’ancienne capitale cambodgienne ne sont plus siamoises, elles nous appartiennent maintenant, de par le traité de mars 1907: Tout le monde est pris d’un beau zèle: la Société d’Angkor s’est fondée à Paris pour veiller sur elles; l’EFEO assumera la charge de leur conservation; les Beaux-Arts songent à en dépouiller les Colonies et le Gouverneur général vient de me donner à leur sujet plusieures instructions: dresser une carte, débroussaillement […] Le Traité de 1907, en nous remettant la garde de ces oeuvres d’une école architecturale disparue, nous a créé des grandes obligations: celle de les conserver, celle de les faire mieux connaître, celle de les rendre aisément accessibles à tous. C’est à l’EFEO, gardienne née des richesses archéologiques de l’Indo-Chine française, que sera confiée la mission de parer à ces obligations. Elle a vaillamment conquis son rang parmi les milieux scientifiques et on peut être assuré, si les moyens financiers ne lui sont pas trop mésurés, qu’elle mènera à bien cette tâche” (Lunet de Lajonquière 1910, here 386 and 397).
- 19.
It is interesting to note Commaille’s remark that the replacement of missing parts of Angkor Wat with re-used round columns taken from other parts of the temple was a harmful and primitive intervention by the actual monks. In reality, these interventions had already been undertaken in the sixteenth century CE when Angkor experienced a cultural and religious (Buddhist) revival.
- 20.
The section on Angkor covers eighteen pages with several unfolding plans of selected temples (Madrolle 1913, 35–52).
- 21.
A short bibliography on Henri Marchal, see Drège 2002, 117–120.
- 22.
Both documents, Arrêté créant le parc archéologique d’Angkor (30 octobre 1925) and Arrêté déliminant le parc d’Angkor (16 décembre 1926) were published in Bulletin de l’Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient 26 (1926): 677–678 and 680–681. The map see in Bulletin de l’Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient 30 (1930): plate XXXII (242–243).
- 23.
Or as Marchal himself put it: “That means that one can see more in the same limited time […] I just give some special indications, how to get there, distinguishable characteristics of the individual temples and details of special attention. […] The tourist under time pressure who cannot visit all temples can focus on every temple’s speciality and make his choice according to his taste.” And furthermore he stated: “Fifteen years ago one could not imagine finding his way—then only with a lot of time and with the only transport available with a bull carriage or a horse—through the meandering pathways which lead through the diverse monuments of Angkor. Today, a network of roads navigable by automobiles links all the principle monuments of the Angkor group and allow the visitor to reach even the furthest temples in a minimum of time: they are inscribed in the so-called Large and Small Circuit. That means one can see much more in the same limited time” (Marchal 1928, v–vi).
- 24.
Editor’s note: This banalization of the local scene as tableau rustique was also introduced by picturesque photography (compare the contribution by Weiler in this volume), but continues, to a certain extent, today in the global tourist industry (compare Chermayeff).
- 25.
Compare Baptiste’s discussion of plaster casts in this volume.
- 26.
Two publications, above all, exemplify the highly individualized touristic circulation using many folding maps of overall travel routes inside Indochina (including their international connections to Thailand, Malaysia, and even China) and individual tour suggestions with detailed individual maps and information about hotel, restaurants, scenic spots, and even gas stations (Nores 1930; Gauthier 1935).
- 27.
This comparative styling system that had been introduced in the late 1920s by an art historian from the Parisian Musée Guimet, Philipppe Stern and his student, Gilberte de Coral-Remusat on the basis of photographs without even going to the temples themselves (Stern, Philippe. 1927. Le Bayon d’Angkor et l’évolution de l’art Khmer. Paris: P. Geuthner, and de Coral-Remusat, Gilberte. 1940. L’art khmèr, les grandes étappes de son evolution. Paris: Les Éditions d’art et d’histoire).
- 28.
Tourist guide books count as another sort of “prescriptive colonial texts”, compare Sengupta’s contribution in this volume.
- 29.
Compare the different sections on the virtual models in this volume.
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Falser, M. (2013). From Colonial Map to Visitor’s Parcours: Tourist Guides and the Spatiotemporal Making of the Archaeological Park of Angkor. In: Falser, M., Juneja, M. (eds) 'Archaeologizing' Heritage?. Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35870-8_5
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