Angkorian Residential Patterns: A view from the trenches

Summary

One of the defining features of the great temples of Angkor is the pattern of enclosed space that surrounds many major monuments. The outer limits of these enclosures are frequently bounded by masonry walls and moats. Although more than a century of research has been devoted to understanding the temples that lie at the center of these enclosures, the structure and function of the vast rectilinear spaces that surround them remains very poorly understood. This paper draws on recent fieldwork by the Greater Angkor Project (GAP) at the walled temple enclosure sites of Angkor Wat and Ta Prohm in order to understand residential patterning within these enclosures. GAP excavations (2010-2014) suggest that the areas for habitation were constructed at the same time as planning and construction of the temples within the enclosures. However, a comparison of material evidence from Angkor Wat and Ta Prohm suggest that the nature and length of habitation within both these enclosures differed. Although preliminary, data from these excavations provide valuable insight into the nature and variability of Angkorian habitation, elucidate the transition into the post-Angkor period, and highlight the continuity and discontinuity in the use of space within these large enclosures.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Recent Advances in the Settlement and Landscape Archaeology of (South)west China and Southeast Asia Part II: The Micro Perspective of Internal Settlement Organization and Object Production

Keywords

Spatial Coverage