The Modern Period: The creation of the Angkor Conservation

It is indeed likely that Angkor was a primary motivation behind the founding of the Ecole Française d'Extrême-Orient in 1899, and it is not mere coincidence that its first director was a specialist in Sanskrit and Khmer epigraphy. In 1908, after the province of Siem Reap was returned by the Siamese to the French Protectorate, the Ecole Française created the Conservation d'Angkor, which was to play a major role in the research, conservation, and restoration activities carried out at Angkor by the Ecole up until the early 1970s.

With the Angkor Conservation Office at its base, a system for the ma-nagement of Angkor as a geographic and historical unit was to develop over the course of the twentieth century. However neither under the colonial administration nor after Independence was there ever a major policy of tourist promotion of Angkor. The park was appreciated for its exceptional archaeological and historical importance rather than for its tourist value.

While research findings of the Ecole Française and other colonial authorities were regularly presented to a specialized audience, this growing body of knowledge on the Angkorian civilization was never actually incorporated into academic or technical training programs within the country itself. Never in its years under French control, or indeed after, did the Conservation undertake the training of Khmer nationals in archaeological research, conservation and restoration techniques or cultural heritage management. Upon Independence, finding itself thus with no capable archaeological personnel, the Royal Khmer Government continued to confide the management of Angkor to the Ecole Française. It was not until 1965, when the University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh was founded, that the training of Khmer nationals in the field of archaeology was to earnestly begin. The Archaeology Department was the central component of a larger national policy aiming to ensure the gradual transfer of management and research activities concerning the Khmer cultural heritage to Cambodian nationals. This nascent policy of Khmerization was however quickly suspended with the onslaught of war.