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Koh Ker Archaeological Site
Koh Ker archaeological site was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List during the 45th session of the World Heritage Committee in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on 17th September 2023. This site was the ancient capital city of the Khmer empire in the 10th century, between 928 to 941 C.E., during the reign of king Jayavarman IV. The city named in the ancient Khmer as ‘Chok Garyar’ meaning pond of ‘Koki tree’ or Sanskrit name ‘Lingapura’. The city of Koh Ker was composed of 169 archaeological sites, which include 76 temples and ancient civil infrastructure remains such as communities’ settlement, road structure, hydraulic structure, ponds and dykes, etc.
Prasat Prang (pyramid temple) is state temple installed at the top of Shiva Linga dedicated to ‘Tribhuvaneshvara’ with four meters high. Prasat Prang is a prominent architecture structure at the Koh Ker archaeological site. Other temples were built to install the Shiva Linga and the beautiful and animated giant size sculptures such as Dancing Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu and statues of Pandava and Kuru in Mahabharata myth.
Through civil war and insecurity in the area of Koh Ker, most of temples were looted and destroyed by natural and the theft with stealing statues to sell or traffic abroad. When Cambodia achieved full of peace under the win win policy of Samdach Techo Hun Sen, the Koh Ker archaeological site opened to the tourist in 1999. Then the government established and institution for management, conservation and development, as well as has opportunities to repatriate may statues back to Cambodia.
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