A capital rebuilt after crisis
Angkor Thom, “the great city”, is a walled enclosure just north of Angkor Wat. It is closely associated with Jayavarman VII, who ruled from about 1181 to about 1218 and rebuilt the Khmer state after the Cham attack on the capital in 1177. The king was a Mahayana Buddhist, and the building programme of his reign, including Angkor Thom, the Bayon, Ta Prohm and Preah Khan, reflects that faith.
It is worth being careful about the word “founded”. The area had been the centre of an earlier royal city, Yasodharapura, whose temples, such as Phimeanakas and the earlier Baphuon, stand inside the later walls. Jayavarman VII’s work gave the site its walls, gates and the Bayon at its centre. The exact sequence of building within the city is still studied, and some of its features were modified in later reigns.
Walls, moat and gates
The city is roughly square, with each side about 3 km long, so the walls enclose an area of around nine square kilometres. A wide moat surrounds them, and the laterite wall behind it stands several metres high. Five gateways pierce the walls: one each on the north, west and south sides, and two on the east, one of which is the Victory Gate leading toward the Royal Palace area.
Each gate has a tall tower carved with four enormous faces, one looking in each direction, rising to roughly twenty metres. Crossing the moat to each gate is a causeway lined with rows of stone figures, 54 on each side. On one side they are gods (devas) and on the other demons (asuras), and they hold the body of a giant serpent. The arrangement recalls the Churning of the Sea of Milk, the Hindu myth that is also carved in relief at Angkor Wat, and it may represent the king as the one who brings order to the cosmos. That interpretation is widely held, though not recorded in surviving texts in so many words.
Today the South Gate, with its restored causeway, is the entrance most visitors use. Some of the figures are replacements or restorations, and many heads were lost over the centuries, so details differ from gate to gate.
The Bayon
At the centre of the city stands the Bayon, the temple most people picture when they think of Angkor Thom. Its upper terrace is crowded with towers, and many of them carry huge faces on four sides, giving a sense of watching from every direction. Roughly two hundred faces survive on a few dozen towers, though counts vary because some towers have collapsed or been restored.
Who the faces represent is debated. Many scholars link them to the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, a figure of compassion, who in this period was sometimes called Lokesvara. Others suggest they portray Jayavarman VII himself, with the king shown in the form of the deity, and some argue for a blend of both. Either way, the effect is of a ruler whose care and authority extend over all directions.
The Bayon is also less orderly than Angkor Wat. Its plan seems to have been changed during and after construction, with later additions of galleries and shrines that give it a labyrinthine feel. It was begun in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, and later kings made alterations. After Jayavarman VII’s reign a Hindu reaction took place, and many Buddhist images across Angkor were damaged or replaced.
Reliefs of battle and daily life
The outer gallery of the Bayon has bas-reliefs that are very different from those of Angkor Wat. Instead of focusing on epic scenes from the Hindu literature, many panels show what appears to be real history and ordinary life. There are scenes of a naval battle between Khmer and Cham forces on what is usually taken to be the Tonle Sap lake, armies on the march, and more domestic moments: markets, cooking, fishing, games and people gathering around a sick person or a birth. These scenes are among our best visual evidence for Khmer daily life in this period, and they sit well alongside the written account of the Chinese envoy Zhou Daguan, who visited Angkor in 1296 and 1297.
Scholars interpret some scenes with caution, since the reliefs mix historic events and religious themes, and not every figure can be identified with certainty.
Terraces and palace area
North of the Bayon lies a broad open space used for royal ceremonies and processions. Along its edge runs the Terrace of the Elephants, a long platform with carved elephants and, at points, lions and garuda figures. It was probably a platform from which the king reviewed his troops and public events. Beside it is the Terrace of the Leper King, so called because of a statue found there whose identity is uncertain; it is often explained as the god of death, Yama, or as Shiva. The Terrace itself has finely carved layered walls.
The royal palace stood nearby, but it was built largely of wood, which has not survived, and only the stone parts of its temple complex remain. The pyramid-shaped Phimeanakas, which stood in the palace enclosure, dates mainly from the early eleventh century and is a good example of the earlier phase of the city. The Baphuon, a large temple-mountain of the eleventh century, was dismantled in the twentieth century for repair and reassembled in an extensive conservation project.
A city with a different spirit
Angkor Thom is sometimes presented as a rival to Angkor Wat. It is better seen as a different expression of Khmer kingship. Angkor Wat is a controlled, symmetrical statement of Hindu cosmic order. Angkor Thom, built in a time of rebuilding after a military shock, is bolder, more varied and more concerned with the king as protector of his people. Modern conservation and research continue at the site, and scholars still debate the precise sequence of its construction and the full meaning of the faces.