Chrei Temple (Beng Mealea)

Also known as Chrey Temple, Prasat Chrey and even Prasat Chrek. It is sandstone temple with two libraries, outer wall with entry gopura, terrace (listed here), and basin. It is a feature of the ancient Royal Road network and one of the several structures that early French researchers would classify as “Temple d’étape” (waypoint or stopping place) and only seen on the Angkor <> Preah Khan route.

It is a must-see site on an excursion to Beng Mealea and won’t take up too much time but offers a unique and picturesque ruinous site.

On its northern entrance, it featured a terrace structure (which is mostly buried and covered by the road) facing the Beng Mealea baray that connected to a bollarded causeway leading to the temple. There is also a causeway leading out to the east and a connection to a large terrace known as Batang.

The temple itself featured a high outer wall of laterite, with main entrances on its north and east with gopura, and a lesser entrance on the western side while the southern side has an unusual building that is open on the inside and closed on the outside instead of an entrance gopura.

Images 2021

Inside the wall, it’s difficult to see much more than ruinous rubble, but still, it has a load of charm about it. Originally, it was a central sandstone temple with a mandapa leading east and flanked by two library buildings.

Architectural Decoration

Images 2024

Historical Notes

Note early inventories named this temple as “Kong Pluk”, a name later given to a temple to the north.

It is a building which would appear considerable, if it were not close to Beng Mealea. It also clearly depends on it, apart from its position, by its system of proportions and decorations. It is constructed of limonite and sandstone, the former being used only for facings and rough pleating. The monument is oriented exactly to the E. It is located to the S. of the large basin, approximately on the axis of the Batang (no. 217). It is an enclosure composed of a high and beautiful limonite wall, decorated with a molded sandstone ridge. It has two doors. The main one opens to the E. and opens into a four-armed aedicula, vaulted and capped, open to the outside, by bays with balusters. There does not appear to be a ditch or roadway in front of this gate, at least on quick inspection. It is in fact in front of the N. gate that there is the access road which no longer has a projection on the ground, but is indicated by a double row of terminals, in a beautiful style. This gate is located 130 meters approximately a staircase which leads from this roadway to the central roadway of the monument (Beng Mealea).

Barely 2 meters from the E door opens the entrance to the central building. It is completely ruined, the upper constructions have collapsed inside, nevertheless we can manage to find the following arrangements: A very small first vestibule. lit by two balustraded bays, precedes an elongated room, similarly lit, in the center. two doors give access to it and, forming projections towards the outside. bring the plan of the room closer to the cross shape: it opens into a square sanctuary, which seems to be cross-shaped, with side doors. It is impossible to know, at least currently, if a later door was cut there.

This part of the monument is accompanied laterally by two rectangular buildings, oriented inversely, with gate a the W. and false doors to the E. These aedicules have an exterior simulation of double vault and single vault inside, The large faces of the N . and from the S. are pierced with a double row of square windows, in the facade itself, much wider than they are high, above the simulated half-vaults. They are one and the other garnished with balusters, The building is completed by another door to the N. conforming to that of the E. cruciform on the exterior faces, and presents for all the particularity of having on the faces interior of the bays. which were subsequently walled with limonite blocks. The aedicula, symmetrical on the S. face, does not appear to be a door. It is, it seems, a residential premises, if we take into account its windows, wide and low, raised much above the ground and open both to the exterior and to the interior. The plan is T-shaped. A vestibule with ordinary bays serves as a corridor location between the porch and the room. Finally, an ornamented door, but not thick, opens onto the W face of the enclosure.

This monument seems to have presented a great development of sculptures. Some of the decorative lintels are interesting. Here is the description of those that we were able to see:

Sanctuary. The first lintel of the E. vestibule of the sanctuary is a decorative composition where the animal (bird) mixes with the foliage (type V). It does not, moreover, present any figure of divinity.

The lintel placed on the clearance which gives access to the sanctuary itself is very difficult to see. It is a modified type III, inverted W. In the center, the two scrolls merge into the descending curve; encountered is a hermit’s figure, hands clasped, perhaps a woman, for she appears to have breasts prominent enough to have broken into two clean breaks. It sits on a central braided stem, coming from a flower.

The third lintel, on the very door of the sanctuary, is also very difficult to see. It is type III modified, with reversed W. In the center, a figure of a deity covered with jewels kneels on the left knee, one hand on this knee, the other on the ground. It is framed by an ogival niche supported by a monster’s head.

The other buildings have, still in place, or easily visible because they are overturned on the ground, some stones sculpted with interesting subjects. Firstly, in the S building, there is a flamboyant pediment which surrounds a figure seated in front of a tree surmounted by a figurine of a woman. Two flying figures accompany him. On the line, which represents the ground on which he rests, two worshipers are placed on one knee. Below, in four niches, are other worshipers similarly placed; one holds a screen fan. The god is wearing a conical mukuța and wears jewelry and earrings.

Another lintel, in the same building, carved more deeply, presents a figure seated on a knee, the left hand resting on the left knee, below, the right hand holding a saber(?) He is seated on a monster’s head. Many other decorative lintels are still in place in the various buildings of this temple; they are all type III modified with reversed W.

The neighboring building, with a reverse orientation, has the following decorative lintel: Composed in type III modified in an inverted W and with parallel foliage, the central motif represents a god in a dancing posture, placed on a monster’s head. Between his legs he holds the two thighs of the monster standing on its front legs. The figure is wearing a three-flowered diadem; she is adorned with jewelry and bracelets. The sketch opposite (fig. 156) will reflect this better than any description.

It follows from the preceding notes that the Kong Pluk monument is a complete temple, comprising:

I. A square sanctuary, with three openings, E. , N. and S., the fourth face probably having a false bay. The three openings as well as the false bay are preceded by a forebody. The front of the W face forms a sort of recess which does not communicate with the sanctuary. The main opening to the E. is preceded by a nave.

II. Two rectangular buildings open to the W., symmetrically placed, in relation to the long axis, in the E. part of the enclosure (treasures or libraries).

III. An enclosure, interrupted by two single-pass gopuras, one on the E. face, the other on the N. face, and a door on the W face. The E. gopura is the rule, the N. gopura was imposed by the need to connect the monument to the general system of the great temple.

IV. A residential building on the S. face of the enclosure, formed by the false gopura.

Lajonquiere, 1902

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..