Bak Temple

Prasat Bak is a small laterite temple with a sandstone doorway, mostly collapsed. Originally it featured an ornate pedestal that supported a large statue of Ganesha.

Update 2023: Recently, and quite fabulously, the Ganesha statue was returned to Cambodia along with numerous other relics.

Historical Photos

Photos property of EFEO, taken in 1965

Historical Notes

Translated from French

Pr. Bak. is a laterite building, in poor condition, as its name suggests (bak: ruined). Located about 2 km southwest. from the Rahal, 45 m to the west of the roadway, it is oriented clearly northeast. Opened in this direction (fig. 15 B), it lengthens its rectangular plan in the opposite direction and if the distance between its walls is reduced by the opening of the joints of its paving, its old exterior measurements must have been 5.68 m over 5.24m. Its entrance bay was obstructed by a formidable elephant’s head, about .8m from one ear to the other, part of an enormous Ganeça that we had some difficulty in 1930 to raise. The laterite walls do not have false doors and it is probable, without being able to affirm it, that the building offered the archaic aspect of a simple and rectangular building with two gables.

The statue could not be replaced exactly in the center of its former sanctuary. The lifting error is o m. 12 about too far south. It is all the easier to recognize as the pedestal was held in place by the frame of inlaid protruding tongues; only the groove remains, with two additional notches to the north, notches whose role I do not know. The paving is not faced; it has only received a fairly rough layage. My men did not recognize any deposit cell under the pedestal, nor on the paving below it.

The god (ph. xxix), monolith with its pedestal without ablution tub, is complete, except for the right arm and the broken end of the left tusk which were not found. Sitting Indian-style, he lets his empty, upturned trunk hang over his legs. The extended left hand, palm up, holds the rice cake; the right lying on the other thigh holds the ritually broken right tusk which was collected in the rubble; its tip rests on the thigh. The ears, apart, have suffered but on the surface, not as one might think at first sight, in their outline. They are lined with engraved folds which end tangentially on the lower edge. The top hem is stylized. The proboscis has its internal face marked with wavy folds. The broken tusk scar is stylized and its socket flattened. The corners of the lips are nicely arranged in a spiral. On the chest, usually naked. the breasts are indicated by the engraving of their nipple and by the dotted line of eight hairs. Although worn, it is seen that the hairstyle was simple, combed back and forth. The hair falls all around the neck and is stopped by the necklace that we find hanging on the chest. They come like a horse’s toupee on the forehead, it seems, almost touching the small eye on the left, barely indicated in line. The one on the right, and besides this whole side of the face, were eaten away by the fire.

The god is dressed in a short sampot, vertically striped, with a wide turn-down. He wears a rather low tiara, adorned with nets of pearls with four diamond patterns; the front is missing. The attachment of the diadem and the whole back on which the frameworks of the roof were consumed, after the overthrow of the idol for the pillage of the sacred deposit, are missing. As jewelry, the Ganeça has two trunk bracelets, one under the tusks, the other halfway along them. He wears a fine gorget collar and a corselet belt; another circles just above the sampot; it could support a kind of langouti. The sampot itself is held by another belt, but of a different character. All the previous jewels indeed, give the impression of flexible ornaments; strings of beads that run from one diamond pattern to another; more square, they would recall the beautiful gold chain with interlocking elements found in the Kompot region and donated to the Museum of Phnom Penh by S. M. Sisovath. The belt on the sampot is, on the contrary, a series of Xs enclosing diamond shapes between them; it is thus more architectural. There are no rings and no anklets.

The pedestal is a delightful composition of the usual type with opposed coves around a double flat band. The fine decoration that covers it entirely without confusion emphasizes the mass of the statue and the ample bareness of the body.

L’art khmèr classique : monuments du quadrant Nord-Est, Henri Parmentier, 1939

*Post updated 2023 to add historical info. Images: 2021 Tour Koh Ker

Rodney Charles LHuillier

Living in Asia for over a decade and now residing in beautiful Siem Reap. Rodney Charles L'Huillier has spent over seven years in Cambodia and is the author of Ancient Cambodia (2024) and Essential Siem Reap (2017, 2019). Contact via [email protected] - more..