Photo 983(6)

Genre: Architectural Photography

View looking across one of the tanks in each quadrant of the cross-shapped galleries, with the tiered galleries linking the lower terrace to the second beyond. A Cambodian man stands at the left to indicate scale.

'A flight of steps conducts to each reservoir. One of these descents is represented on the right of this photograph. These steps have been guarded on either side by stone lions, which we found in fragments in the rservoir. The positions which they occupied are indicated by the three holes shewn on the upper surface of the stone, on the right and left of the steps. In the centre of each of the four reservoirs we found a heap of sculptured stones. What these may have been it is difficult to say - probably images of the snake god, or even fountains with consecratd water issuing from the mouths of the seven-headed snake. In examining the upper reservoirs we discovered an aqueduct, which appears to have communicated with the lower reservoirs...It will be seen from a careful examination of the photograph, that the ornaments along the ridges, and at the angles of the roof, consist of infinite repetitions of the seven-headed snake-god. The picture, which is a mere fragment of the building, will also convey some idea of the beauty of design that characterises the whole, where the architect has combined the ornate richness of the finest Indian structures with the power and massiveness of our most classical examples, and in no part of the building can we finder a finer illustration of the adaptation of the structure to the nature of the climate. The massive stone roofs, with their curved surfaces, present a reflecting angle to the hot rays of a vertical sun. Between the pillared spaces a mild reflected light would be admitted from the courts or the mirror-like surface of water in the reservoir; while the cool air of the inner corridors would induce an outward current, establishing a complete systeem of ventilation throughout the entire building. To sit at mid-day, beneath the inviting shade of these arching roofs, the solitude of the place and the scene before us carrying us back in imagination to the time when the temple was in its glory - when, perfect as they left the chisel of the sculptor, every pillar and ornament was mirrored in the reservoir, and when groups of devotees, in the graceful costume of a polished age, were waiting for the time of worship - seemed a recompense for all the toil of our journey, and inspired within us a feeling of reverence for the race that had raised such monuments to its religion and its god.'

('Description of the Photographs', p. 41).

[Albumen print, 185x236mm].

Subjects = Khmer architecture; printed books; tanks; temples; Thomson, J., 'The antiquities of Cambodia' (1867)