Wat Banteay Kbal Chen

Originally believed to be a late-10th century or early 11th century brick temple that had a central shrine flanked on either side by library buildings. Today, only the laterite outer wall remains, with only scattered remnants of the original temple seen, such as colonette fragments and sandstone plinths.

The walled area has been filled with earth and topped with a contemporary shrine. A curiosity of the site is the numerous sandstone plinths from the original ancient temple that are carved with round relief holes and outer bevels. Most likely, they were used as the base for the wooden pillars of a Buddhist vihara which, based on the historical notes, happened sometime after the early 1900s. Today, a contemporary pagoda sits immediately to the north of the temple.

Folklore has it that wild elephants and tigers roamed the area, and long ago, a Chinese community settled nearby, growing vegetables and selling them in the market. One day a Chinese farmer was attacked by a tiger and only his head was found remaining which was taken and placed in the temple! Since that time, the temple has been named Banteay Kbal Chen (source).  I am not sure about the story, but the presence of the local Chinese community is a certainty, with two related shelters housing Terracotta warrior/Khmer-style statuettes.

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Images 2021

Historical Notes

Kabal Chen (The Chinese’s Head). The village of Kabal Chen stands on the right bank of the Stung Roluos towards the S. of Phnom Bok, almost at the confluence of the Stung Sena Sangkream, one of its left tributaries.

The temple, near which a bonzerie has been set up, is located approximately 150 meters from the huts.

Sanctuary – Its sanctuary is made of brick, square, measuring 5 m. 75 externally, with a door on the E. and false doors on the other sides. The frames, the colonnettes, the decorative lintels of the door and the false doors, as well as the leaves with joint covers of these, are in sandstone and had received a start of decoration, but the decorative lintels remained rough, not even sketched. Above, rose high pediments also prepared, it seems, for a decoration that was not started. The upper steps have collapsed and pile up on the base which they hide, rising to half the height of the facades.

Enclosure – A limonite wall with a sandstone coping and crest, 1 m high, measures 30 metres in an E.-W. direction by 18 metres N.-S. There is no trace of a gopura, but, in the middle of the E. face, a pile of scree and earth perhaps indicates the location of a small brick construction, ruined or left unfinished.

Annex buildings – Two annex buildings in brick, regular in plan, are symmetrically placed in the E. corners of the enclosure in relation to the major axis. They are both very ruined. The one on the S., long like its symmetrical one of about 6 meters, has this particularity that the total height of its vault did not exceed 3 meters externally; the door and the walls of the large faces barely reach 0 m. 80 in height. Its small western face was however decorated with a false door and, as with its symmetrical one, the roof simulated the system of vault and lateral half-vaults.

Inventaire descriptif de Monuments du Cambodge, E. Lajonquiere, 1911