Prasat Baksei Chamkrong

ប្រាសាទបក្សីចាំក្រុង

Province

Siem Reap

Period

Angkor period (802–1431 CE)

Condition

Intact

Access

Easy access

Visited

12 October 2024

Coordinates

13.42574, 103.85911

How to find it

Beside the road from Angkor Wat to the South Gate of Angkor Thom, on the west side, just before the moat. Easy by tuk-tuk, bicycle or on foot. It is inside the Angkor park, so you need an Angkor pass.

The stair is very steep. Go early, when the light is soft and few people stop here.

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Field notes

A single brick tower on a steep four-tiered pyramid of laterite, in the trees between Phnom Bakheng and the South Gate of Angkor Thom. It was begun under King Harshavarman I and finished by Rajendravarman II, whose inscription on its door frames, dated 947, records the setting up of a golden image of Shiva inside.

Its name is usually translated as "the bird that shelters under its wings". The story told about it is of a king fleeing an attack on Angkor, saved when a huge bird swooped down and hid him under its wings. The linguist Saveros Pou read the old name differently, as "the king watched over by a bird".

The inscription also tells one of the founding stories of Cambodia: the sage Kambu, who with Shiva's blessing married the celestial Mera. Their descendants were the Kambujas, the people of Kambuja, the old name from which Cambodia comes.

Over the east door, Indra rides his three-headed elephant Airavata. The other three sides have false doors carved in sandstone.

AngkorRajendravarman IIHarshavarman IShivalegendbrick

Sources

Wikipedia: Baksei Chamkrong. Maurice Glaize, The Monuments of the Angkor Group (1944), Baksei Chamkrong.

Photographs

A brick tower on top of a four-tiered laterite pyramid, a single steep stair running up the middle, trees either side under a blue sky — A single brick tower on a four-tiered pyramid of laterite.

Worn sandstone steps in the foreground leading across the grass to the stepped pyramid and its tower — The approach from the east, across the grass.

Looking up the steep central stair to the brick tower and its open doorway, grass growing on the top of the tower — One steep stair on each side climbs to the sanctuary.

A carved sandstone lintel: a small figure seated above a three-headed elephant at the centre, garlands and foliage spreading to each side — The lintel over the door: Indra, king of the gods, on his three-headed elephant, Airavata.

The sandstone door frame of the sanctuary, with carved octagonal colonnettes and a lintel above the dark opening — The sanctuary door, framed in carved sandstone.

A sandstone false door carved with fine panels of scrolling foliage, between ringed colonnettes — On the other three sides the doors are false, carved in stone with panels of foliage.

A small elephant-headed figure carved inside a round medallion edged with flames, at the end of a lintel — An elephant-headed figure, probably Ganesha, in a medallion at the end of a lintel.

A wide view of the brick tower on its top tier, grass and plants growing from its upper storeys, a figure standing in the doorway — Grass grows on the top of the tower, which still has much of its brick.

A 360-degree photograph bent into a circle: the pyramid and tower rising from a small round world of grass and trees — The pyramid folded into a circle by a 360 camera.

A 360-degree photograph bent into a circle: the carved lintel above, the pyramid and trees curving round below — The lintel and the forest folded together by a 360 camera.