One of the things I got from my two weeks trip to explore pre-Angkorian and Dvaravati arts with ICOMOS international experts in Cambodia and Thailand is the problem of drafting nomination dossier of Cambodia on other Angkorian sites. The problem of how to distinguish between those nominations with Angkor as the listed Angkor already almost covered all aspects of the Pre-Angkorian and Angkorian cultures. Some ICOMOS scholars even opinioned that if original nomination of Angkor exclude Rolous Group which is a Pre-Angkorian site, the works will be more easier for the nomination of Phnom Kulen and other lesser Pre-Angkorian sites to be World Heritage! And right now, this site is being proposed as an extension of Angkor to solve the unsolved problem.

Since the trip only went to the unknown lessor temples on Phnom Kulen, not Kbal Spean, the most famous historical site, initially I thought this is just “fill the gap” day with minor sites, but the visit turned out to be the most memorable one and a hot debate among ICOMOS scholars. After Sambor Prei Kuk, the power center of Khmer Empire moved to the area of Siem Reap, but before the ancient Khmer decided to settle around Angkor Wat, they settled on the small plateau top of Phnom Kulen Mountain and named the city “Mahendraparvata” as the center of the super large Khmer cultural landscape that covered whole northern Cambodia plain. Our mini van took us to the top of Phnom Kulen, the winding road showed us the natural fortifications of once the grand city especially the big rock channel that acted like city gate. We passed the 1000 lingas river, a small version of Kbal Spean, since the site is Angkorian Period, all ICOMOS scholars did not care to visit. We reached Preah Kral Pagoda Temple, a modern temple, to meet up to 50 motorcycles readied to bring us to visit Mahendraparvata. Our local guide told us that the dirt road to temples is not bad, but when my driver turn the motorcycle into the jungle with no road, I knew that today will be a special day! After many turns in the rocky jungle, my driver finally found the small road and drove thru beautiful, lush green valleys of tree where my head and arms bumped with, muddy ponds that caused my shoes and lower part of my shirt to be fashionably dirty. Along the way I saw many ruins of temple in the jungle still waiting to be cleaned and excavated. With many directions confusing for 40 minutes, we finally reached Srah Damrei, the platform of elephant and lion statues, it was an impressive sight to see such beautiful stone animals in the middle of jungle. Then we went to Rong Chan Temple, the oldest temple, and the center of Mahendraparvata. The temple guardians were quite shocked to see horde of 50 motorcycles at the same time. We saw large laterite platform which historians told us where the city foundation ceremony happened. After that we continued the jungle journey to Damrei Krab Temple. The temple was built with unique mix of Khmer and Cham art causing hot debates among our visited scholars for its origin. Some believed that the temple predated Mahendraparvata, some believed that it was a missing link of Cham influenced in early Angkorian arts that not only Sambor Prei Kuk that had major role on art development, but Cham from My Son also. To be honest for casual spectators like me, I did not know the differences and really wanted to go back to hotel to clean myself after whole day adventure!   

At dinner, our experts told me that since Mahendraparvata and Angkor’s Rolous group were quite closed in historical timeline of Pre-Angkorian settlements. With more excavations, historian discovered that many pre-Angkorian temples in Phnom Kulen and Rolous had been used and renovated in later Angkor periods resulting mix of various periods of art in many temples. Despite unique characteristic and historical value, at present Cambodia still prefers to consider Phnom Kulen as an extension of Angkor for convenient. In my opinion, it is quite a shame for such great site to be put under shadow of Angkor, maybe future archaeological discoveries in Phnom Kulen will provide a better opportunity for Mahendraparvata to shine by itself.