Sam Yot Temple

Located around 5km southwest of Beng Mealea, Prasat Sam Yot features the remnants of what appears to be a late 10th-11th century temple. On visiting in late 2024, it was quite overgrown and appeared to be a single sandstone shrine that opened to the east with a forebody and had chambered false entrances around its other sides. The decoration was completed on the west false door but not on the north side. Scattered masses of sandstone blocks litter its east and west sides.

It appears that it was surrounded by an outer enclosure that seemed likely to have a gopura of the north and south at least. There is a long trail of sandstone pieces on the eastern side of the shrine, which appears to have been heavily excavated at some point. The layout of the site might be clearer as the overgrowth dies off during the dry season.

The site is surrounded by a moat (mostly dry) and has a large basin to its east that’s over 800m x 440m, which the modern-day road to Beng Mealea cuts through. It is suggested that this basin has a relationship to the ancient East Road, which may have utilised its embankments. It’s worth noting the basin, if, in fact, it was a basin and related to this site, seems somewhat oversized in proportion to the temple. Notably, there is a raised embankment that runs along the northern edge of the moat and another to the west of the site.

Some of the architectural decoration appears incomplete, very much so for a lion that sits on the western side of the temple. Nearby, a temple crown can be seen. The false gopura that still stands on the north side of the temple is somewhat oddly hobbled together in places.

 

Update Feb 2025 – we returned to the site after clearance work had been carried out by the APSARA team of Beng Mealea.

It’s amazing how different it looks after clearance. What I originally thought was a false door of gopura, is actually the wall of the northern shrine. The site featured three sandstone towers, all aligned on a typical north-south axis and open to the east. The central tower has a forebody extending its east entrance and chambered false doors around the other three sides. The side towers, slightly smaller, also seem to have been intended to have a similar forebody extending their entrances.

Quite a lot of well-executed decorative relief carving is seen among the fragments, with many pieces appearing partially completed. It has some strong connections with the 11th-century style seen at other sites.

The north tower is something of a curiosity, its southern wall still standing, internally featuring precisely carved cornice decoration, yet the outer face of the wall is an odd assembly of random blocks.

The decoration of the central shrine was exceptionally executed, typical of the era, but seemingly incomplete.

The southern shrine has mostly collapsed, assuming it was completed.

Architectural Decoration

Historical Notes

On his way to see the Prasat Sek Tà Tuy, Mr. Marchal stopped to see two small prasat not mentioned in the Inventaire du Cambodge of Lajonquière, but appearing on the map of Indochina to the hundred thousandth (sheet 167 bis). The first, 2 kilometers south of the village of Tük Lič, is called Prasat (sic) Samiot on the map. It consists of a sanctuary entirely in very collapsed sandstone, showing an interior wall corner decorated with a very clear and very wide frieze of a style recalling, like the lintels still visible, the period before that of Ańkor Vat. To the south and north are two remains of gopuras whose interior door seems to have been walled up.

Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient, 1930