IPPA2014 Report (2): Angkor sites and the national museum

Here, I show the Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Bayon, Ta Prohm, and the Angkor National Museum I went on January 18 (Sat). These Angkor archaeological sites are explained on the following websites.

Guide of Angkor Wat Sites (URL: written in Japanese)
Angkor (UNESCO)

Angkor Wat

Entrance
Near the bridge
 
Wall of the corridor



Wall relief showing battles

 




















Climbing the tower
View from the top of the tower












The tower was so huge.

The Angkor Wat is one of archaeological sites where I wanted to went since I was a child. Now I fulfilled a childhood dream.

This site is a very large temple site, and the corridors contain many relieves showing the scenes of battles. Also some Buddhist monuments are housed here.













Angkor Thom

There are many sites here, and the following photos show tetrahedral towers carving Kanzeon Bosatsu.


Met a group of elephants


Huge faces of monuments




Bayon

My companion Dr. Nobuhiko Kamijo (Hirosaki University) told corridors of the Bayon contain relieves about local people lives, and so we searched whether there is a relief about processing materials by stone querns into these relieves or not. Indeed, we couldn't find this kind of relief, but I was very interested in the following relieves.


Cooking
Cutting stone material



Cooking an animal
Barbecue





















Ta Prohm

Entrance
Building near the centre
Tree root eating a building


Reconstructing




















 
Elephant Terrace
Very huge terrace
Many elephant carvings












Relief of monkeys
Lunch at a booth near this terrace











 
Angkor National Museum

This museum opened in 2007, and history of Angkor sites and artefacts from the sites are exhibited now. We saw this museum after going to the Angkor sites, but if we visited here first and went to see the sites, we might expand our time-space understandings and knowledges. Audio guides and exhibition materials were very rich teaching materials.


Museum shop
Museum











 
That's about my reports of IPPA 2014. Many attendees and colleagues will come to join in the 8th World Archaeological Congress in Kyoto, 2016. I'm not sure which kind of sessions will be organised in Japan, but I hope this will become a new international conference that "everyone can enjoy without any language problems".

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