The Modern Period: The re-discovery of Angkor

Cambodia is considered to have entered a new historical phase around the beginning of the nineteenth century, with the linguistic evolution from Old to Modern Khmer and the inauguration of a new political era.

As a civilization enduring in vestigial forms through monuments, religious beliefs, political systems, artistic practices and language itself, Angkor underwent a new process of conceptualization both within Cambodia and beyond.Though at the beginning of the nineteenth century the country was still under the rival domination of Siam and Vietnam, the reigning monarch, Ang Duong, without any ambitions of conquest - or reconquest - was the first sovereign since Ang Chan in the sixteenth century to demonstrate a global vision of the nation. This king rehabilitated national infrastructures and instituted new ones, actively participated in religious and literary deve-lopment, and reformed judicial codes. Together, these actions served to reestablish Cambodia as a cohesive whole.

Angkor, or more particularly Angkor Wat had become a founding element of the Khmer conscience. The image of Angkor Wat that has always figured on the Khmer national flag reflects Khmer as much as Western visions of the Cambodian state - even while a certain brand of nationalism, and the institution of the national flag, may themselves be largely a Western heritage. Even so, Khmer conceptualization of Angkor was eventually to be furthered and transformed by Western interpretations of the Khmer past.

It was toward the end of Ang Duong's reign in the 1850s that Angkor came to take on modern global dimensions. Henri Mouhot, a French naturalist on expedition with the British Royal Geographic Society was the first Westerner to publicly acclaim the wonders of Angkor. Published in 1863 , Mouhot's descriptions of Angkor made a great impression on their audience, inaugurating more than a century of sensation surrounding this "discovery." Closely thereafter a German ethnologist, Adolf Bastian, was the first to attempt to understand Angkor from a scientific point of view, associating the monuments with Indian architectural models. Scientific interest was to heighten the political value of Angkor. France and Siam simultaneously sought to consolidate power in the evolving regional political situation. In 1863, the French Protectorate over Cambodia was established, covering a territory that included the Angkor region. However four years later, a French-Siamese treaty ceded the provinces of Siem Reap and Battambang to Siam. In exchange, this powerful neighbor agreed to renounce previous claims of authority over the whole of Cambodia as its vassal state. While there was a certain amount of internal French opposition to the move, the negotiations were carried out behind closed doors, and even today the existence of the treaty is little known.

The attention of the Protectorate was nevertheless increasingly drawn to the Angkor region over the course of the following decades. Louis Delaporte, a member of the Mekong expedition team, was accorded the command of the exploration of Khmer monuments, especially at Angkor. In exporting Khmer statuary art for display in French museums and in sending rubbings of inscriptions to Europe for study, the Delaporte mission inaugurated yet another phase in the European understanding of Angkor. Entitled Voyage au Cambodge, Delaporte's principal publication is largely dedicated to descriptions of the ancient capital.