Phnom Kambot

ប្រាសាទភ្នំកំបុត

This site carries historyThe path to the temple starts at the Phnom Trungbat Criminal Genocide Site, a Khmer Rouge killing field. Its memorial holds the remains of those who died there.

Province: Siem Reap
Period: Angkor period (802–1431 CE)
Condition: Partial
Access: Motorbike required
Visited: 29 December 2024
Coordinates: 13.61201, 103.41400

How to find it

Phnom Kambot is around 1 km from Wat Phnom Truang Baht, in Kralanh district.

Head south-west about 60 m from the easy-to-find Phnom Trungbat Criminal Genocide Site, then follow the path 460 m to the temple, which sits on top of the hill.

You will need an off-road worthy motorbike to make it up the hill, or a decent pair of legs and lungs.

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Field notes

A very interesting, but difficult to find temple: a small single brick tower, about 4 m by 4 m, now lower than the 5 m recorded by the French surveys.

Étienne Aymonier's mission explored the temple in 1883. Sometime between 1883 and 1902 an extraordinary sculpture was taken from it: a Buddhist female deity of the first half of the 12th century, in sandstone and 62 cm tall, with eleven small heads rising from her hair. She is now in the Musée Guimet in Paris (MG 14908). Scholars still disagree about who she is: Prajñāpāramitā, the goddess of transcendent wisdom, or an eleven-headed form of Avalokiteśvara.

More left in 1934, when Henri Marchal, head of the Angkor Conservation, reported bringing two sculptures from here to Angkor. The EFEO photographed two Buddhist stelae from the temple that April. One shows five Buddhas on the nāga above three female figures; the other a dancing Hevajra with nine heads and sixteen arms.

Kralanhbrick templeBuddhist

Sources

Recorded in the Inventaire Khmer as IK 667 (CISARK 541).

The deity: Hedwige Multzer o'Naghten, "Prajñāpāramitā dans le bouddhisme du Cambodge ancien", Arts Asiatiques 71 (2016), pp. 31–54, figs. 12–13. Persée

The 1934 removal: "Cambodge", Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient 34 (1934), p. 766. Persée

The stelae: EFEO photograph, April 1934, photographer unknown. EFEO_CAM00860

Photographs

A small ruined brick temple tower with an arched doorway and a carved stone colonnette, among green undergrowth — The single brick tower of Phnom Kambot on its hilltop, with fallen bricks stacked in front of the doorway.

A sandstone colonnette standing beside a corbelled brick doorway — A sandstone colonnette still stands beside the doorway; the brick above it is corbelled inwards to make the arch.

Side view of a brick temple doorway with a stone colonnette and a pile of loose bricks — The doorway from the side, with loose brick from the upper tower piled below.

Looking through a brick doorway into the overgrown inner chamber of a small temple — Through the doorway into the chamber, now open to the sky and filling with plants.

The sun bursting past the stepped cornice of a weathered brick tower, with trees beyond — Late afternoon sun past the stepped cornice of the tower.

A weathered temple wall in dark laterite and brick, with a man standing in the undergrowth beside it — The outer wall of the tower, with Brother Ou for scale.

An ornate gateway with a sign reading Phnom Trungbat Criminal Genocide Site, with two motorbikes parked on the track beneath — The gateway to the Phnom Trungbat Criminal Genocide Site. The path to the temple starts here.

A tall white memorial stupa whose glass-sided base holds the remains of victims — The memorial stupa at Phnom Trungbat, where the remains of those killed here are kept.

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