Bayon Khmer Army Reliefs

[Dangun]

I am heading to Siem Reap, Cambodia and Angkor Wat again in a couple of months time (for Man-cation 2017). So I was wondering if anyone has an article or book that interprets the Khmer army reliefs on the Bayon's outer galleries, that they would recommend?

I'm interested in the nitty gritty - things like why are the hairy dudes identified as Chinese, why is the water Tonle Sap lake, does it depict civil war, or war with the Cham?

I've read a couple of books and articles on the topic, but just wanted to catch things I may have missed.

[Duncan Head]

You've got Jacq-Hergoualc'h's book, haven't you? I can't really think of much else.

Edit: I've just seen this, which is a scene of archers in Cham dress. I don't think this features in J-H, and I don't think I've seen it before.

[Patrick Waterson]

Interesting technique: they are drawn up behind spearmen (or javelinmen) and are shooting overhead.

This is of course by no means a unique arrangement; it seems to have been popular across a wide range of cultures ... but how many Cham army lists (and by extension their neighbours) have mixed spearmen/archer units?  (This is a genuine and not a rhetorical question as yours truly is not au fait with recent lists.)

[Duncan Head]

but how many Cham army lists (and by extension their neighbours) have mixed spearmen/archer units?  (This is a genuine and not a rhetorical question as yours truly is not au fait with recent lists.)

In the DBMM list, for both the Khmer and the Cham, up to half the archers can be Bows - that is, massed archers. Which might be a possible interpretation of the relief, though Bows can't support anyone. The other half-to-all are Psiloi, and the psiloi can support the Ax(S) long-shield jacketed spearmen, who are the guys apparently being supported here. So despite not knowing about this relief, we can represent it.

[Patrick Waterson]

That seems to be a good start.

[Dangun]

You've got Jacq-Hergoualc'h's book, haven't you? I can't really think of much else.

Edit: I've just seen this, which is a scene of archers in Cham dress. I don't think this features in J-H, and I don't think I've seen it before.

Yes. Got JH's book.
Unfortunately it doesn't deal with the beginner questions like why are the Cham identified as Cham?
I guess that the Chinese allies might be identified in reference to the Bayon junk, the Khmer can be identified because of the inscriptions which accompany similar Angkor Wat images, "Syam Kim" identifies (one way or another) one set of allies, but I wonder if the Cham on the Bayon are identified circumstantialmy or directly (inscription or sculpture elsewhere.) I am not disputing the identification, they are certainly the far most likely enemy.

But sitting in Penang airport, the wifi can't cope with that Cham image so I look forward to seeing it at the hotel.

[Duncan Head]

Maybe we need Bayon: New Perspectives? Then again, the phrase "it depcits the forces who have always been interpreted as the Cham victors" in Tran Ky Phuong's The Cham of Vietnam suggests we might have to look back to some of the earliest studies to check why that interpretation was made.

[Tim]

Next time I have 50 quid burning a hole in my pocket... (almost 40 second hand...)

[Dangun]

Maybe we need Bayon: New Perspectives? Then again, the phrase "it depcits the forces who have always been interpreted as the Cham victors" in Tran Ky Phuong's The Cham of Vietnam suggests we might have to look back to some of the earliest studies to check why that interpretation was made.

Got that book too! It's quite good although Vickery (before he died) complained about the editing.

I think you are right, I'll have to polish up my French.
Your Tran Ky Phuong quote almost sounds as though the interpretation, was for him also, lost in the mists of time.

[Dangun]

Edit: I've just seen this, which is a scene of archers in Cham dress. I don't think this features in J-H, and I don't think I've seen it before.

I just returned to civilisation and saw this picture...
If that's the Bayon then I have at least 2 hires copies of that image.
Although I can't remember, without getting home to the PC, if this is part of the Bayon's "Cham" as allies or "Cham" as enemy. The outer gallery features both.

[Duncan Head]

From Vickery's "Champa Revised" paper:

Other, less direct, evidence is in the bas-reliefs of the Bayon and Banteay Chhmar. They depict scenes of combat in boats between two sides distinguished by different headgear – interpreted without epigraphic evidence as Cham and Khmer. They also show land warfare with infantry and elephant troops, again distinguished by headgear but mixed, as though some of the warriors believed to be Cham were fighting on the side of the Khmer.

(Emphasis mine). I'll stop looking for an answer in the Bayon inscriptions, then....

[Dangun]

Well spotted.
It is a pity that Vickery didn't published a broader piece based on Champa revised - it's not an overly researched topic.
And last year, he sadly passed away.

There is epigraphy at Angkor Wat which identifies the Khmer forces, and so we can ID the Bayon Khmer by visualcomparison I suppose. The Cham identification while convincing remains circumstantial then.

[Dangun]

I just noticed that Maspero's The Kingdom of Champa (1928) was translated in 2002 by White Lotus books out of Thailand.
https://whitelotuspress.com/bookdetail.php?id=E22285

Luckily my wife will be in Bangkok on the weekend, and so I have prepared detailed instruction on how to get to the Chulalongkorn university bookshop.

[Patrick Waterson]

Would that be René Gaston Georges Maspero, resident superior of Cambodia in 1920 and a founder of the École française d'Extrême-Orient, rather than Henri Paul Gaston Maspero, Sinologist and author of La Chine Antique?

Both were incidentally sons of Sir Gaston Camille Charles Maspero KCMG, the famous Egyptologist.

[Dangun]

The former.