Photo 983(24)

Genre: Architectural Photography

View of tower, with face carved in relief on each of its four faces. These images on the 54 towers of the Bayon are now thought to represent King Jayarvarman VII rather than Brahma, as Thomson asserts (the temple is considered to be a Buddhist rather than a Hindu foundation).

'This subject embraces one of the towers of 'Prea Sat Ling Poun' (the place where they play hide-and-seek). This is a modern name given by the natives, on account of the labyrinth of passages and apartments that occur beneath the towers. The temple is so much shrouded with forest trees, climbing vines, and thorny brushwood, that it was only after a hard day's cutting, with a party of natives, that we succeeded in clearing the tower sufficiently to obtain a photograph. This edifice, like Nakhon Wat, occupies nearly a square, measuring from 400 to 500 feet each way. it, too, has an outer corridor (the roof of which has fallen in). The back walls, like Nkhon Wat, are also adorned with bas-relief representations of battle scenes, &c...Our efforts to produce a plan of the building proved abortive, as we had not sufficient men to make the necessary clearings, and we would have been exposed at every step to the danger of being crushed by falling masses of stone, as some of the blocks seemed to depend for their position upon the vines that were coiled, like a multitude of cables, around them. The building, as nearly as we could ascertain, has one great central tower, with fifty minor ones, corresponding to that shewn in the photograph, grouped around it. Each tower is surmounted with the four-faced Phrohm (Brahma). The passages beneath, in the lower storey of the temple, are so numerous and intricate that we frequently found difficulty inextricating ourselves from the labyrinth, while their dark, damp interiors were suggestive of the scene of a nightmare. As we advanced, rifle in hand, every step brought down flights of shrieking bats that flapped their clammy wings against our faces.'

('Description of the Photographs', p. 67).

[Albumen print, 186x231mm].

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