Supheap Tbong Temple

Located in Preah Vihear province along the ancient route from Beng Mealea to Preah Khan of Kampong Svay (PKKS), Prasat Supheap Tbong is a unique temple type that was only found along the Angkor-PKKS section of the ancient Royal Road network. Early French researchers would label these sites “Temple d’etape” with the belief that they were a stopping place or place of rest along the route.

Prasat Supheap Tbong, or South Sopheap temple, features a very similar layout to the other temples of this type featuring an outer enclosure wall with a large gopura on the east, and a central shrine with long forebody flanked by two library buildings. In this case, there is also a lesser gopura to the north and west, and a large annex building built into the south wall.

This annex building in the south wall is quite interesting, this one appears to have a second chamber extending southward and two deposit wells, moreover, what was its function? It’s only this temple type that has this special room bar another site which is not too far away, Boeng Sasar Viech Temple. I think future archeological work surely has a lot to tell us about those things and further the knowledge of the Angkor Wat era when these sites were believed to have been founded.

The site has truly returned to the jungle. It is heavily overgrown limiting the areas that can be seen, but here’s a selection of shots from the south library, east gopura, the central shrine, and south gopura/annex building.

The site actually has a long terrace that seeming leads from the north side of the site (unreachable) and terminates 100m away near the existing road. We only noticed this by chance on stopping to eat lunch and sitting by the creek (dry) we spotted a whole heap of laterite blocks in the river bed. Following the terrace back to the site was impossible due to fallen trees and heavy growth.

Rodney Charles LHuillier

Living in Asia for over a decade and now residing in beautiful Siem Reap - Contact via [email protected] - more..