Martin Polkinghorne

Glass artifacts at Angkor: evidence for exchange

Although glass beads were found in large quantities in Southeast Asia during the Iron Age and into the first millennium CE, glass artifacts from the Angkorian period (ninth–fifteenth centuries CE) are less common and have not been as well-studied. This paper presents the results of an analysis of 81 glass beads and artifacts from the ninth-century royal capital of Hariharālaya and later (twelfth–fourteenth centuries CE) contexts from the walled city of Angkor Thom. Compositional analyses using laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) have identified glass belonging to three broad compositional groups. The earlier Hariharālaya sites have numerous glass beads and vessel fragments made from vegetal soda glass, associated with Middle Eastern production, as well as high-alumina mineral soda glass of a sub-type frequently found at Iron Age sites in Southeast Asia and likely produced in South Asia. Beads from the later-period sites within Angkor Thom are primarily lead glass, associated with Chinese glass production, and different sub-types of high-alumina mineral soda glass that have also been found at sites in Southeast Asia dating from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries CE. A small number of beads from Angkor Thom also have a vegetal soda composition distinct from beads at Hariharālaya. The results of this study provide a new type of evidence for elite participation in broader regional exchange networks during the Angkorian period.

Life goes on: Archaeobotanical investigations of diet and ritual at Angkor Thom, Cambodia (14th–15th centuries CE)

This is the first time an archaeobotanical analysis based on macroremains, both charred and desiccated, from Cambodia is reported. The archaeobotanical samples are rich and provide evidence of rice processing, consumption of non-indigenous pulses, and the use of economic crops. The evidence is supported by data from inscriptions, texts and historical ethnography. This study demonstrates that the city of Angkor in the 14th and 15th centuries CE, despite its decline, was still occupied. Angkor’s inhabitants continued their everyday lives cultivating and consuming their staple food, rice, with a suite of pulses, and also used the harvests in the performance of rituals.

A New Model of Angkor Wat: Simulated Reconstruction as a Methodology for Analysis and Public Engagement

ABSTRACT Since its construction in the twelfth century, Angkor Wat has endured as a pre-eminent regional, spiritual, and artistic symbol of mainland Southeast Asia. The temple has been a perennial focus of art-historical research, with scholars typically considering it as an architectural and artistic archetype and as a manifestation of a belief system. The disciplines of art history and digital visualisation, when previously brought together in relation to the temple, have presented the temple as an isolated artefact. Such static interpretations deserve to be discarded, as augmented digital visualisations that are now available offer scholars the opportunity to situate the temple within its historical landscape with goal seeking animated inhabitants (termed ‘agents’), displays of religious practice, ephemeral architecture, and vegetation. Drawing upon recent archaeological findings, a team of researchers from Monash University has created a dynamic simulation of twelfth-century Angkor Wat where plural reconstructions can be explored jointly by digital practitioners and Southeast Asia specialists. In contrast to broad archaeological studies that plot change over decades or centuries, this simulation re-creates just 24 hours; a day in the life of medieval Angkor Wat.