摘要: Description　　Phnom Kulen range is located 30 km northeast of Angkor archaeological site, Siem Reap province, northwest Cambodia. It is registered since 1992 on the Government of Cambodia’s tentative l

Description

　　Phnom Kulen range is located 30 km northeast of Angkor archaeological site, Siem Reap province, northwest Cambodia. It is registered since 1992 on the Government of Cambodia’s tentative list as a World Heritage potential cultural site, with the criteria V and VI. Phnom Kulen means the Mountain of Leeches in Khmer. According to the old Khmer inscriptions (and particularly Sdok Kak Thom inscription), the mountain is known as Mahendraparvata, the mountain of the Great Indra, an ancient city established at the late 8^th-early 9^th-centuries, comprising several temples, the religious remains of this former capital of the Khmer Empire. The capital was settled on the plateau, located 70 Km to the south of the Dangrek Mountains, and 30 Km away from the great Tonle Sap Lake. Today, the Phnom Kulen national Park is a 37,375-hectares protected area, located in Banteay Srey, Svay Leu and Varin districts, in Siem Reap province.

　　The ancient Mahendraparvata (late 8^th-early 9^th centuries) on Phnom Kulen is today a partially forested site containing about 40 brick temples, including one pyramid mountain-temple, as well as ancient reservoirs, dykes with spillway, channels, ponds, plots, platforms, and earthen mounds, all part of an ancient urban system.

Other later archaeological remains are also located on Phnom Kulen such as dozen prehistoric sites with rock paintings, more than 40 rock shelters occupied by hermits from the 10^th century, including 2 sculpted riverbed (Kbal Spean and the One Thousand Linga), ceramic kilns dated from the 10^th to 11^th centuries, a late Angkorian temples such as Prasat Krol Romeas located at the large natural waterfall (end of the 12^th century), and the large and very much venerated nowadays Preah Ang Thom reclining Buddha.

　　Phnom Kulen is located in Northwest Cambodia, such as the others Cambodian Cultural World Heritage sites: Angkor, Preah Vihear and Sambor Prei Kuk. The mountain range is also at the origin of the Siem Reap River, as well as the other main rivers of Angkor region (Puok and Roluos). It has a major role for the local aquifer and for the surface water, draining most of the plateau before reaching Angkor, nourishing its entire hydraulic system, the major reservoir (baray) and the temples or city moats through a network of channels, and ending in the great Tonle Sap Lake.

　　In addition, Phnom Kulen holds a major symbolic significance for the ancient Khmer Empire as, according to ancient inscription, King Jayavarman II proclaimed independence from Java in 802 CE from the city of Mahendraparvata. There also, this king initiated the first Devaraja cult of the king, as stated in Sdok Kak Thom inscription (Michael and Evans, 2018: 118). Among local recent legends, one identifies the mountain with the place where Buddha stepped a foot, when the entire country was flooded.

　　Recently, the LiDAR technology has revealed a very large and formally planned network of oriented earthen dikes forming axis. This urban grid connects previously known, temples, and the water infrastructures, such as the dams blocking the valleys of the plateau and creating large reservoirs. Organizing the landscape on a large scale (more than 40 km²), it also organizes settlement plots. Most of the temples are single brick towers, attributed to Jayavarman II reign. One of them stands out, Prasat Rong Chen, the five-tiered pyramid temple built on the highest point of the southern part of the plateau. Partially constructed from leveling or soils embankments (first two levels) and laterite blocks (last three levels), the temple’s top level is accessible by ramps, unique remains of a construction left unfinished. An unfinished large reservoir, or baray, was also evidenced thanks to the Lidar technology. Additionally, the Royal Palace of the ancient capital (Banteay) was identified in 2009 (Chevance, 2014) and confirms the presence of the king and his court on the plateau, at the early 9^th century. Mahendraparvata (Phnom Kulen) is, therefore, very significant as it is one of the earliest capitals of the Angkor period, which extended from the 9^th to 15^th centuries.

　　Systematic archaeological survey and excavations have identified an array of cultural features. There are more extensive of a large settlement than the historical record indication. For instance, later Angkorian inscriptions often refer to Jayavarman’s capital on the plateau, but no inscriptions dating from that period have been found so far in Phnom Kulen. However, the significant infrastructures in Phnom Kulen demonstrated the “first engineered landscapes of the era, offering key insights into the transition from the pre-Angkorian to Angkorian period, including innovations in urban planning, hydraulic engineering and sociopolitical organization that would shape the course of the region’s history for the next 500 years” (Chevance et al, 2019: 1305). Mahendraparvata on Phnom Kulen, “therefore, represents a significant milestone in the development of urban from/in the region” (Chevance et al, 2019: 1317).

　　It is believed that “the grid of major axes provides the overall framework upon which other patterns of habitation are based and elaborated” (Chevance et al, 2019:1316). According to Lidar and following field verification researchers “found hundreds of ponds within the central area, only two of them interrupt the course of the major axes, the other ponds are scattered within the city blocks” (Chevance et al, ibid). Several evidences “suggest that the central grid was laid out before, or during, the elaboration of the habitation network, and that the two systems functioned contemporaneously” (Chevance et al, ibid).

　　The existence of a royal palace, numerous temples and neighbourhoods, indicate that a royal court was located on the Kulen plateau. A substantial population living in “an extensive, well-defined, built-up area” supports it (Chevance et al, 2019:1318). “This area was clearly of parceled neighbourhoods indicate that it was not merely a vacant ceremonial centre (Chevance et al, 2019:1318).

　　Prior to the Mahendraparvata construction, “the evidence shows that settlement patterns in the Angkor region comprised small, loosely structured urban areas that lacked any formal grid, had no clear boundaries and appear to have developed organically without a coherent plan. Beyond the Angkor region, a handful of centres show evidence of enclosing walls, for instead, at the sixth to eight centuries AD site of Sambor Prei Kuk. On the other hand, these much smaller in scale than at Mahendraparvata and contain no internal grids. Thus, Mahendraparvata marks an important point of departure, and appears to represent the first large-scale ‘grid city’ elaborated in the Khmer world. It would be some time before such a design would be fully realized again in the Angkor region. The ninth-century AD city of Hariharalaya, the capital immediately following Mahendraparvata, contains a monumental core but, overall, evinces an organic layout typical of the early Angkorian ‘open cities’ (Evans 2010; Pottier 2012). It is only in the tenth and eleventh centuries AD that the massive linear axes and internal frameworks of cities appear again in the Angkor region (Gaucher 2017),  and not until the twelfth century that we have unambiguous evidence for gridded cities achieved on the same scale as Mahendraparvata (Evans 2016). Hence, the urban network revealed by lidar and described here seems to form an enormous and remarkably early experiment in formal urban planning. The urban model that first developed on this mountain plateau, although sparsely inhabited at the time and not widely adopted straight away, would eventually be adapted to the low-lying floodplains of Angkor, and become a prototype for high-density urban centres at the height of the Khmer Empire” (Chevance et al, 2019: 1317, 1318).

　　Mahendraparvata map bring new insights regarding the history of the Angkorian urbanism. It combines the two previously identified forms (Evans et al, 2013; Evans, 2016), while missing many other elements. It has an extended city grid, but without any attempt to define a central area with a wall or moat; the central grid does not appear to have been densely inhabited; and there is little evidence for intensive agricultural activity or a broader network of low-density occupation revolving around fields and ponds. Hence, while Mahendraparvata is immediately recognizable as Angkorian, and identifiably ‘urban’, it is totally unique in the Khmer world in its development of urban form (Chevance et al, 2019:1319).

　　Moreover, the architecture and art of Phnom Kulen, moreover, indicate the development of a unique style during the reign of Jayavarman II, at the end of the 8^th century. The sandstones decorative architectural elements (columns and lintels) and the sculptures progressed to a unique and a new “Kulen style”. This style illustrates a transition from the previous pre-angkorian styles to the future angkorian and post-angkorian styles.

　　After this early capital of the Khmer Empire was abandoned as the siege of power, the court moved from Mahendraparvata on Phnom Kulen to (Hariharalaya in Rolous, 15 Km east of the future Angkor). Phnom Kulen site continued to be considered as a sacred mountain and later archaeological sites show, it was never completely abandoned. Epigraphic evidence indicated that Kings consecrated sculpture riverbed (Kbal Spean) and later temples and particular infrastructures such as channels, stairways, ceramic kilns or mounds fields evidence an occupation of the Phnom Kulen during the angkorian period. Nowadays, several Phnom Kulen archaeological sites still hold a sacred value for Cambodians and are the witnesses of an important worship by Khmer people, coming from the entire country. Monks and modern hermits often reused hermit’s sites, insuring a sacred continuity, and numerous legends, folktales, and narratives continue to be associated by the local communities to the archaeological sites. 

　　Finally, Phnom Kulen is also known to host the ancient quarries, where the sandstone blocks were extracted. From Phnom Kulen site, a complex and long network of channels and parallel raised earthen road allowed their transportation to Angkor, to build the prestigious religious monument, from the 10^th century. Phnom Kulen ancient quarrying industry, known from the late 19^th century, was developed on a very large scale, recently revealed by the Lidar (Evans, 2017). It has left numerous localized pits with high stepped surfaces forming a complex network of stone exploitation.