Their silence is not an absence of words, but a conversation about feelings

SIEM REAP — Since the dawn of mankind, humans have attempted to etch their presence on the rock faces of mountains, granite towers, gold coins, or in bronze artworks. They have sent satellites carrying messages in space, created stories to be passed down across generations. Humans are intrigued about where they came from and who they will become.

Cambodia is no exception to this human habit, its temples and monuments displaying centuries of history etched in stones of various kinds, in various places, and in various forms. The gentle smiles of the devas, the ferocious stares of the asuras, the calming stance of the Buddha, the protective one of Shiva.

Not all the surfaces of stones depict divine worlds. Some portray the daily life of people buying fish, playing games, hunting animals or cooking food; also an army waging war, their followers towing oxcarts and looking after oxen.

Beyond what can be learned from the bas-reliefs or inscriptions and texts in Sanskrit, which can help determine how old monuments are, and also who had been involved in or disrupted the course of history, experts can learn a great deal through scientific techniques about the geological composition of the stones, where and how they may had been extracted, transported, put in place and immortalised.

Since the day the temples were inaugurated, their stones have been battling the elements, humans and animals. To those who can interpret them, they will tell that they were damaged by the elements, gotten sick due to animal waste, or how they were harmed or pulled apart by the tree roots. They also can tell us when they were damaged or broken apart due to human greed, and how they were rescued, at times reunited, and then cared for by people.

They have told us how they stood firmly in place as much as they could, and how they were moved at times, that they offered people shelters during times of conflicts, that they have brought comfort and smiles during celebrations. And today, they stand as a testament of hope, a repository of memories, and a time portal that connects the past and the future.

Over the last two years or so, ThmeyThmey Digital Media and its English-language affiliate Cambodianess have interviewed a number of archaeologists and other experts working at historical monuments and sites about what they had learned at those sites and from the temples’ stones.

One of these experts at the Angkor Archaeological Park, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1992, is Mounir Bouchenaki, an Algerian archaeologist who is a member of the ad hoc expert group on conservation of the International Coordinating Committee of Angkor (ICC-Angkor) that oversees the site along with the APSARA Authority, the Cambodian government agency managing Angkor Park.

During a 40-minute interview in March 2024, Bouchenaki explained with passion how the temples’ stones manage to convey messages. “You can see the construction, the materials, the decorations: It is speaking, it is explaining.

“They were made in very fine ways, and so they have become not just stones,” he said. “We gave them forms; we gave them importance. They represent the religions of billions of people: These are intangible heritage.”

Bouchenaki went on to say that a living monument is one that continues to offer value to the humans living today, an accumulation of stones that is sending us messages.

Since the early 1990s, he and other Cambodian and foreign experts have worked hand-in-hand to maintain and preserve monuments and other elements of Angkor Park. A site whose meaning and importance for people in the country goes beyond reflecting a chapter in history.

During an interview in October 2020, Minister of Culture and Fine Arts Phoeurng Sackona had said, “[m]any people, even myself, pray at Angkor when difficulties arise. This is a belief, a faith in the soul of the ancestors, their sacrifices, their blood, their tears. Everything that they have left us, physical or abstract, in the course of thousands of years.

“When we [Cambodians] go through happy times, we also celebrate here,” she said. “It almost seems like a family. When you face hardship, who will you go and meet? Your family members. When you are happy, who will you go and meet? Your family members.”

The Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts is responsible for the protection and maintenance of the known and lesser-known temples and historical features built over the centuries in the country. Except for the sites that are on the UNESCO World Heritage List and are overseen by specific bodies: Angkor Park; Sambor Prei Kuk, which was the capital of the empire in the late 6th-early-7th century; the temple of Preah Vihear; and Koh Ker, the empire’s capital for a short period in the 10th century.

Hang Peou, a hydrologist and director general of the APSARA National Authority, pointed out, during an interview in January 2023, to what he said amounts to a crucial message left by the country’s ancestors.

Among the area’s historical works is what is known today as the “River of a Thousand Lingas,” which is an area of Stung Kbal Spean River on the slope of the Kulen mountain where were sculpted many lingas representing the Hindu deity Shiva.

“Although the symbol does have spiritual meaning, from a scientific point of view, it is a message forwarded by our ancestors through times that encourages us—their descendants—to respect and protect the source of water from Mount Kulen,” Peou said. “The water from Mount Kulen is the life blood of Angkor. This is a very short and concise message.”

One of Angkor’s most important sources of water, Mount Kulen is located around 50 kilometres from what was the center of the Angkorian capital whose population is believed to have nearly reached 1 million people at its height in the 13th century. 

Dubbed a “hydraulic city,” Angkor relied heavily on a system of canals, moats, and reservoirs to supply the population of its capital and the neighbouring farmlands.

Hans Leisen, a geologist and conservation scientist from Cologne in Germany, has been working on the stones of Angkor for more than three decades, focusing mainly on the aesthetic aspect of the monuments such as stone surfaces, bas-reliefs and inscriptions as well as on the internal stone structures.

Leisen, who heads the German Apsara Conservation Project, actually takes the idea of “the stones are speaking” to the next level.

“Sometimes, we really listen to them: we knock and we use a stethoscope to listen to them” he said, explaining that the sound that bounces off the internal stone structure may help researchers determine the state of the stones inside. “We have to look and see what the stones want to say to us,” Leisen said. “Their materials, their behaviours, and how we can provide appropriate methods to help restore them.”

Leisen treats each sculpture of an apsara (celestial being) like a real person who experiences actual illness, he said. Through the erosion, the cracks and the scaling, some of the apsara sculptures at Angkor really send messages to the experts that they are getting sick visually, and also emotionally.