Pram Temple (Khvav)

Another feature along the ancient royal road, Prasat Pram, was what the early French archeologists called “Temples d’étape” in simple terms, what they believed to be a temple that was part of a staging or stopping place. Other temples of this type include Prasat Toap Chey Thom, Prasat Chrei, and others, which are only found along the Beng Mealea-Preah Khan (Kampong Svay) section of the ancient Royal Road. Update 12/2024: the site has recently been cleared.

It consists of an outer enclosure that opens to the east with a grand terrace and a long bollard-lined causeway. Inside, two library buildings that open to the west flank the main shrine. The main shrine would have featured a square body that rose up with a temple tower and chambered false doors while opening to the east with a long forebody that feature axial side entrances and a co-axial entrance to the east.

It sits just south of the ancient road and present-day road, and to the northwest is the “firehouse” Ta En temple and to the northeast, an ancient bridge, Spean Khvav.

Images 2024

Description and Images 11/2021

The site features an outer wall containing two “library” buildings and a central shrine. It also appears to have had a small basin and a laterite structure just forward of its northern entrance. The site is probably due for shrub clearing internally (late 2021) so I don’t have any pics to show of the central shrine and libraries, just the outer wall and entry and a mass of thorny green shrubbery.

Along with the other “Temples d’étape” and firehouses and bridges, I can imagine this one day being cleared and restored to become a highlight along the ancient royal road network and bringing lots of good luck to the people of Khvav.

Architectural Decoration

Images 2024

Historical Notes

This temple is located 500 meters S. of Prasat Ta Ein, 300 meters further on the main causeway from Beng Mealea to Prah Khan.

It includes: I. A sanctuary with avant-corps and nave; II. Two annexes (treasuries or libraries); III. An enclosure with monumental doors; IV. External terraces (fig. 170).

I. Sanctuary. The sanctuary is made of sandstone, it opens to the E. by a door preceded by a avant-corps lit towards the S. by a window with balusters. The other three faces, although only presenting false bays, are also preceded by illuminated avant-corps, which thus form a kind of reduced with a single exit to the outside. The E. avant-corps is preceded by a wide nave with two projecting doors on its large faces and a door with vestibule on the E. This nave was lit by two balustraded windows. pierced on each of the large faces. The entire sanctuary rested on a molded base, but is now little more than a pile of rubble, from which a few details emerge here and there allowing the whole to be reconstructed. The vaults in fact collapsed inside, taking with them a large part of the facades, breaking and burying the sculptures.

II. Annex buildings. The rectangular buildings, built symmetrically in the E. part of the enclosure in relation to the major axis, are made of limonite with sandstone frames and veneers: their major axis is oriented E.-W. and they open to the W. by doors with avant-corps decorated with the usual apparatus. The faces to the E. are decorated with false doors in sandstone veneers: They both rise on basements forming terraces, richly decorated and molded.

III. Enclosure. The enclosure is made of limonite. A sandstone ridge ran along the edge of the coping, also made of limonite; it is partly overturned. This rectangular enclosure is interrupted on the E. face by a single-passage gopura, which encloses a single cruciform room lit by two balustraded windows on each of its faces, inside and out. Two other gopuras of more restricted dimensions rise on the N. and W. faces. They have a single passage which crosses a small rectangular vestibule. On the S. face a false gopura, almost of the same size as the building on the E. face, interrupts the enclosure wall. The perpendicular branches are however reduced to two slight projections, on the middle of the inner and outer faces, so that this building encloses a single large room. rectangular lit by two balustraded windows on each of its two facades. This room communicates with the courtyard by an open door in the projection of the interior face, to which corresponds a false door in the projection of the exterior facade. Thus arranged, this building appears to have been intended to serve as a dwelling.

IV. Approaches. At some distance to the E. rises a terrace with retaining walls of moulded sandstone. The earthwork is extended on all sides by a paved part, overhanging, supported by round pillars, which would seem to indicate, by comparison with similar ones at Beng Mealea, that it was built in the middle of a basin. The causeway which connects this terrace to the E. gate of the monument is cut by an intermediate terrace of limonite.

The whole building is in very poor condition: the vaults have collapsed, filling the interior of the various buildings and covering the some sections of walls still standing. Among these debris we find very pretty pieces of sculpture, decorated pilasters, pediments, decorative lintels, small columns; the decoration of this temple seems, in fact, to have been particularly developed. We were unable, due to lack of time and means, to clear away the half-buried sculptures; we must point out, however, that in many of them the Brahmanic divinities have been removed with a chisel, all the decorative part having been respected.

These sculptures appear to be, as far as can be judged by those that are visible, of a somewhat special style. The decorative lintels are similar to type IV. from which they differ, however, by the use of some ornamental motifs to frame certain figures. One of the decorative lintels exposed, that of the N. exterior door of the enclosure, presents the following scene. In the center a figure with a high cylindrical bun, represented standing, facing forward, holds a trident in his left hand, the right being placed on his belt; to his right a kneeling figure holds out an are, to his left a monkey, also kneeling, offers him on his two outstretched hands an object that we have not been able to define, the outlines of which are very vague, but which resembles a stupa. On other decorative lintels are depicted combats, rounds of devatas, etc.

By clearing away the collapsed buildings, we will be able to uncover a number of compositions which will rank among the most interesting of those left to us by the sculptors of ancient Cambodia.

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..