Angkorian World

Mitch Hendrickson is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, USA. He worked as an archaeologist in northwest Mexico, the Canadian Plains, and High Arctic before shifting his focus to Cambodia in 2001. His initial research on the development and role of the Angkorian road system enabled him to develop two ongoing projects in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts on the technological transformation that enabled expansions of the Khmer Empire and understanding religious transition at the site of Preah Khan of Kompong Svay.Miriam T. Stark is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, USA. Her 40-year career includes fieldwork in North America, the Near East, and Southeast Asia; she launched her first field project in Cambodia in 1996. Her Cambodian research, through multiple projects in collaboration with Cambodia’s Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, focuses on protohistoric to Angkorian period urbanism, early state formation, and political economy.Damian Evans is Senior Research Fellow at the École française d’Extrême-Orient in Paris and an Honorary Associate in the Department of History, School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry at the University of Sydney. He is involved in a diverse array of projects across Southeast Asia encompassing archaeology, heritage, and the earth sciences, and he has initiated and overseen archaeological projects in Cambodia since the late 1990s. His work focuses on using earth observation technologies such as satellite imagery, radar, and lidar to understand the relationship between humans and their environments from the deep past to the present day.

“From the urban sprawl of the ancient city to the minutiae of pottery and temple bas-reliefs, The Angkorian World succeeds in offering a multi-dimensional, polyvocal account of this South East Asian polity. While this volume is a dense and comprehensive insight into the state of Angkorian studies at present, prospective readers, be they scholars of premodern Asia or lay enthusiasts, need not be daunted. This important collection makes the intricate tapestry of Angkor an accessible and rewarding read.” Joanna Wolfarth - South East Asia Research

• Prologue: An Introduction to the Angkorian World; PART I: CONTEXTS; 1 An Environmental History of Angkor: Beginning and End; 2 Texts and Objects: Exploiting the Literary Sources in Mediaeval Cambodia; 3 ‘Invisible Cambodians’: Knowledge Production in the History of Angkorian Archaeology; 4 The Mekong Delta Before the Angkorian World; 5 The Early Capitals of Angkor; 6 Angkor’s Multiple Southeast Asia Overland Connections; 7 Angkor and China: 9th–15th Centuries; PART II: LANDSCAPES; 8 Forests, Palms, and Paddy Fields: The Plant Ecology of Angkor; 9 Angkor and the Mekong River: Settlement, Resources, Mobility, and Power; 10 Trajectories of Urbanism in the Angkorian World; 11 Angkor's Temple Communities and the Logic of Its Urban Landscape; 12 Angkor as a "Cité Hydraulique"?; PART III: STATE INSTITUTIONS; 13 Angkorian Law and Land; 14 Warfare and Defensive Architecture in the Angkorian World; 15 Āśramas, Shrines, and Royal Power; 16 Education and Medicine at Angkor; PART IV: ECONOMIES; 17 Angkor’s Economy: Implications of the Transfer of Wealth; 18 The Temple Economy of Angkor; 19 Angkor’s Agrarian Economy: A Socio-Ecological Mosaic; 20 From Quarries to Temples: Stone Procurement, Materiality, and Spirituality in the Angkorian World; 21 Crafting With Fire: Stoneware and Iron Pyrotechnologies in the Angkorian World; 22 Food, Craft, and Ritual: Plants From the Angkorian World; PART V: IDEOLOGIES AND REALITIES; 23 Gods and Temples: The Nature(s) of Angkorian Religion; 24 Bodies of Glory: The Statuary of Angkor; 25 ‘Of Cattle and Kings’: Bovines in the Angkorian World; 26 An Angkor Nation? Identifying the Core of the Khmer Empire; 27 The Angkorian House; 28 Vogue at Angkor: Dress, Décor, and Narrative Drama; 29 Gender, Status, and Hierarchy in the Age of Angkor; PART VI: AFTER ANGKOR; 30 Perspectives on the ‘Collapse’ of Angkor and the Khmer Empire; 31 Uthong and Angkor: Material Legacies in the Chao Phraya Basin, Thailand; 32 Mainland Southeast Asia after Angkor: On the Legacies of Jayavarman VII; 33 Early Modern Cambodia and Archaeology at Longvek; 34 Yama, the God Closest to the Khmers; 35 Inarguably Angkor