Khmers’ Heritage The Heaven on Earth
Angkor National Museum, Siem Reap, Cambodia
MúzeumCafé 10.
Cambodia’s Angkor National Museum, created with a European approach and Thai finances, opened in 2008. Its collection, the largest in country, is owned by the National Museum in Phnom Pen, which was built by the French between 1917 and 1920 using concepts about traditional Khmer architecture elaborated by French museologist and art historian George Groslier. The number of full-figure statues in the collection exceeds that in the Guimet Museum in Paris. The first royal seat of the Khmer Kingdom was Koh Ker, which saw the rule of Jayavarman IV (921-941) and his son Harsavarman II (942-944). Construction of Angkor Wat began nearly 60 years after Koh Ker. János Jelen, president of the Angkor Foundation which is organising an expedition there beginning in 2009 – including Hungarian participation – says this is the first year of a three-year project and is for scheduled for preparation. Heritage, environment and community are the three pillars of the programme. According to Jelen, currently only one or two out of every thousand tourists travelling to Siem Reap visit Koh Ker. If, due to research and the clearing of land mines, tourism takes off it will threaten an ecological disaster – as is already threatening Angkor Wat, with its 2.1 million tourists annually, and the town of Siem Reap, which has several hundred guest houses and hotels, though no road network or proper sewage system. The long-term aim of the expedition exploring Koh Ker is to relieve Seam Reap of the enormous flood of tourists. Will it work?