Saving Cambodia’s Treasures
By ALAN RIDING, New York Times

SIEM REAP, Cambodia – During Cambodia’s long nightmare of civil war,
genocide and foreign occupation, concern for its archaeological
treasures
took second place. But now, after more than a decade of peace, an
international campaign to rescue Angkor Wat and other centuries-old
temples
is being hailed as a model for safeguarding the ancient sites of
Afghanistan, Iraq and other nations enduring war.

Involving some 40 major monuments and hundreds of smaller sites
spread over
160 square miles, the restoration work in the region may take another
25
years or more. Yet an initiative – led by France and Japan and
coordinated
by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization -
has demonstrated a rare commitment to preserving a miracle of human
ingenuity in a country too poor to do so itself. Around many temples
are
cranes, scaffolding and armies of workers. Archaeologists, architects
and
engineers from a dozen countries are also working at the sites, while
Cambodian guards and police provide security. “A system is in place
that
insures cooperation,” said Ros Borath, the deputy director-general of
Apsara, the Cambodian government agency that has overall
responsibility for
the program.

There are already significant results. Since the creation of an
International Coordination Committee in 1993, the area has been
cleared of
25,000 land mines, including 3,000 inside temple grounds. Looting of
statues and friezes has stopped, and the international traffic in
stolen
artifacts has been disrupted. Roads have been paved, and there is a
new
visitors’ center. So far $50 million has been spent on 100 or so
restoration projects, with $5 million continuing to be invested here
annually.

At a conference in Paris in November, Unesco’s director-general,
Koichiro
Matsuura, said, “What has been learned in this decade, and is still
being
learned, could serve as a model for the rehabilitation of other
ancient
sites in post-conflict situations – such as Bamiyan in Afghanistan or
the
Mesopotamian legacy in Iraq – that have suffered from neglect, wanton
destruction and the devastation of war.”

There is talk of creating a Charter of Angkor, which would detail the
institutional structure and the new scientific techniques and ethical
standards that have been applied here and that might also work
elsewhere.
There is no international campaign to protect and restore
archaeological
sites in Afghanistan and Iraq. Still, having survived the
stranglehold of a
jungle, occupation by Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge guerrillas and
uncontrolled
pillaging, the Angkor region is facing a new challenge posed by
success.

The number of visitors to the temples increased sixfold in six years,
to
some 600,000, more than half foreigners. So this nearby town, Siem
Reap, is
experiencing chaotic growth, with new hotels straining the fragile
urban
infrastructure.

One conclusion of the Paris conference was that over the next decade,
along
with pursuing restoration of Angkor’s sites, other countries should
help
Cambodia fight poverty, protect the environment and promote regional
development. “The population must feel that Angkor Wat improves their
lives,” said Azedine Beschaouch, the project’s coordinator at
Unesco. “We
must focus not just on stones, but on men, women and children.”

National pride in the Angkor temples is evident in the large number of
Cambodian visitors to the sites. (They have free access, while
foreigners
pay $20 for a day pass, $40 for three days.) With the zone now easily
accessible for the first time in centuries, a visit represents for
many
Cambodians a discovery of their heritage as well as a pilgrimage to a
historic Buddhist shrine.

The Angkor complex flourished between the 10th and 14th centuries and
was
again briefly occupied in the 16th century, but the temples had
largely
been abandoned and overgrown by the time French explorers reported
“discovering” them in the mid-19th century. And while drawings,
photographs
and eventually statues removed from the zone stirred excitement in
Paris,
only in 1907 did the French School of the Far East start a program for
clearing the jungle and restoring temples.

After Cambodia became independent from France in 1953, French
archaeologists continued to manage the Angkor Conservation Service,
perpetuating a French monopoly over restoration and research. But
progress
was made, not least in restoring Angkor Wat and several temples
inside the
nearby walled city of Angkor Thom, including the Bayon, with its 200
large
sculptured faces. Then in 1972 three years before the Khmer Rouge
seized
power in Phnom Penh, escalating warfare ended conservation work.

Cambodian archaeologists and architects were among the hundreds of
thousands killed during the Khmer Rouge’s four-year reign of terror.
And
even after Pol Pot was ousted by Vietnam in 1979, Khmer Rouge
guerrillas
remained active in the region. Only in 1986 did a group of Indian
archaeologists resume work at Angkor Wat, but their techniques –
chemicals
to clean the temple towers and cement to support interior walls – were
widely criticized.

Mr. Borath defends the Indians. “Their presence was politically
important,”
he said. “They were the first to return, with few resources and under
very
difficult conditions. There was a cease-fire, but still great
insecurity.
Perhaps their method was not correct, but it is good to remember the
conditions.”

Finally in 1991 Cambodia’s warring factions signed a peace treaty. The
following year Unesco named the Angkor temples a world heritage site
on
condition that the Phnom Penh government commit itself to a detailed
restoration program. And in 1993 the International Coordination
Committee
was created to channel international aid to the zone, including the
training by Japan of a new generation of Cambodian archaeologists and
architects.

There is enough work to keep everyone busy. The World Monuments Fund
is
active in conserving Preah Khan and two smaller temples. A Chinese
team is
restoring Chau Sey Tevoda outside the eastern gate of Angkor Thom. A
Swiss
team is reinforcing the structures of the “pink” temple of Banteay
Srei, 20
miles northeast of Angkor Wat. Japanese experts, who have already
restored
the northern library of the Bayon, are restoring the towers of Prasat
Suor
Prat and rebuilding part of the causeway across the moat leading into
Angkor Wat. Italians have reinforced the moat’s outer wall.

Since the late 1990′s a German team has been working inside Angkor
Wat to
restore and preserve the 1,850 stone reliefs of “apsaras,”
the “celestial
dancers” of Indian mythology who have given their name to the
Cambodian
Angkor authority. “Many are in alarming condition, because of the
weather
and because nitrates, phosphates and sulfates are seeping through the
walls,” Hans Leissen, who heads the German team, explained. The most
ambitious project – reconstruction of the vast temple of Baphoun
inside
Angkor Thom – is being carried out by the French School of the Far
East
using a method known as anastylosis, which was first developed by
Dutch
colonialists a century ago in Indonesia. This involves dismantling a
damaged monument stone by stone and then rebuilding it, if necessary
with
modern support systems.

French experts began work on Baphoun in 1960 and had laid out 300,000
numbered stones, some weighing up to two tons, when they were forced
to
flee the Khmer Rouge in the early 1970′s. By the time work resumed in
1995,
however, all archives had been lost. “Every place has a stone and
every
stone has a place, but we had only photographs to work from,”
explained
Pascal Royère, the French architect in charge of the project.
Gradually,
though, the temple is being rebuilt, with work due to be completed
around
2005.

In contrast, the sprawling temple of Ta Prohm, where huge banyan trees
still grow out of the ruins, is to be left much as it was found in the
mid-19th century. An Indian team will secure some perilous walls and
address an annual flooding problem, but it will not touch the
trees. “The
trees, too, are part of the world heritage,” Mr. Borath said. “They
are
part of the memory.”

“In any event,” he added with a smile, “it is difficult to know in
places
if the building is held up by a tree or the tree is held up by a
building.”[End]

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