Svay Thom Temple (Preah Vihear)

Also recorded as Prasat Thnal Svay (of which there are many sharing the same or very similar name). It is a remote site located in the forest/farmlands of Preah Vihear about 8km south of Choam Khsant. The ancient site featured three shrines flanked by a library which was surrounded by an outer enclosure and looking at what we see today in conjunction with old French notes, the site was a masterpiece.

The site is in a surprisingly good state of preservation, perhaps thanks to the locals of the area. The outer wall is constructed of sandstone with a peak cap, common to sites in Preah Vihear, featuring an entrance gopura on the eastern side leading into a courtyard with a library, and the three towers of which the southern shrine is in the best condition with a beautiful lintel and pediment still in situ, albeit overtaken by a tree growing out its roof. The central shrine is a tower, much larger than those flanking which are elongated featuring a beautiful tiered corbelled roof that rises up with a false floor. All three appeared to have peristyle columned entrance halls with that of the central tower being much longer that its counterparts. Overall, the site reflects the style of what is seen in some sites of the Koh Ker complex and it really is a hidden treasure.

There are local people developing farmland nearby the temple who very much care for the site and their ancestral heritage, a big kudos to them for showing us around the site and gifting us a bunch of bananas which was a welcome snack along the remainder of what was a two-week journey in part IV of Preah Vihear province.

Getting there – You can reach this site by following the same trail as Prasat Kang Het which also goes past Trapeang Thnal Chhouk leading off the Cha’eh<>Krala Peas track to the east and this trail eventually goes north and joins the 2626. The trails are mostly farm trails, with deep soft sand in places, but passable by moto in dry weather. That’s as of 02/23, every year these trails seem to change, please keep that in mind.

Historical Notes

Provided below is a very crude translation (from French) of Parmentier’s site review is provided below along with a layout map

Prásat Thnal Svày 307 (M. H. 613).

Pr. Thnal Svay, “the temple of the causeway of the mango trees”. depends on the fictional village of Tok Kraham and is 12 km southeast of Cam Khsan. The monument (pl. XXV) is made up of a group of three sanctuaries where the type of the ordinary prásál and that of the long sanctuary unite. The central sanctuary is preceded by a nave analogous to the side sanctuaries and in one piece with them. The set, exactly oriented, is accompanied by a library and enclosed in an enclosure opened to the east by a gopura. Everything is sandstone. A ditch basin framed the whole.

The central sanctuary which remained in épannelage presents inside particular provisions. The room is square and the walls rise irregularly without corbels. The door, with rather wide uprights in depth, assembled at mid-mitre, has its true lintel provided with pin holes and it comes up to the face of the wall (fig. 26 C).

The cella was designed with a blind clearance. The door has remained raw and only the frame is molded. This clearing is covered by some enormous blocks of stone (fig. 26 E), and the gable which ended this vault, and where the roof of the room leaned, has fallen forward and fills it with its rubble. The hall has its corbelled walls strongly enough inside to reveal a false low-nave vault on the outside. Above, the existence of a missing roof is revealed by the mortises of the high purlins in the face of the clearance. The wide window in the west wall of the back is simple and without leaves. On the outside, the plan of the tower is the classic plan with fairly protruding false doors, but everything has remained in planing. Near N-E corner. of the S. library is a remarkable tower crowning which comes from the central prását. In the South-East, a – angle weaving, square, could also come from it, as it could having belonged to the lower floor of the gopura. Its relative dimensions rather small would seem to indicate it for the top floors of the central prását. The clearance is treated as a triple false nave, and the cornice of the small nave is higher than that of the pilasters of the false doors, while the latter reigns more or less with the lower nave cornice of the hall. This lower nave is tiny and its wall has only two courses between the elongated base and the cornice prepared for a lotus motif and not for coves. This observation is important because it allows us to design the artistic composition of the monument. Whereas in almost all the others, the room, even when it is contemporary with the tower. presents itself as an addition, attached by a lower clearance, here the composition was frankly decreasing from back to front, tower, clearance, room and portico. The gable of the hall is a building facade with three frank naves. The side half-gables are set back a little with a pretty pediment with a half wavy pointed arch, ending in a naga motif without a starting head and framing a scrollwork panel. The most prominent central part was occupied by the decorative composition of the door where the lintel unfortunately lost. This reversed set still shows the molded frame and the five-element columns with small but frank bare. In front rose a portico of at least one span, and perhaps of two: in this case the gable would have been carried on four pillars as usual. The information is contradictory, and the question cannot be settled. only by careful research.

The S. sanctuary is fortunately in good condition, and its examination confirms the previous reading. It is a rectangular building treated in the fictitious system with three naves, with gables of angular roofs in front of curved vaults. The inner room, rectangular, is covered by a double corbelled vault. Outside, the side walls present the usual composition surmounted by the tiny floor of the apparent high nave. The lower nave shows the common base, then above a rather short wall, but higher than that of the front room, the molded cornice under the ends of the false tiles which form a half-vault in the shape of a bell. The wall and the cornice of the fictitious central nave are missing; the E. () facade is frank in composition in this fictitious system of three naves. central part shows its door with complete decorative composition frame with thin profile, octagonal columns, slightly different from each other, but both with five important elements and bare, beautiful high lintel III, with inverted W garlands, pilasters richly scrolled ciscles with ornate cornice, corrugated ogive pediment with domed rampant with the head of a lion and naga, beautiful scrollwork tympanum offering a crouching figure in the center. This elegant silhouette stands out from the back wall under the vanished covering of the portico. -this is marked only by its triangular outline; its curved gable which was carried by the overturned pillars is unfortunately thrown forward.

If this E. side says what it wants to say, even if it is a lie, flat against the O side, lacks frankness and presents gropings in an incredible confusion. The rear wall is bare and does not indicate the central false nave by a projection; so that the gable of the floor and the half-gable of the lower nave form a single plane and overhang the cornice of the lower nave, which for no reason makes the complete turn while this indecisive median surface receives the cornice of the floor to carry the central triangular gable was the only chiseled part, but it overturned to the West. The effect must have been quite unpleasant. This fall cleared the end of the vault, the extrados of which appears as a fairly low arch.

The N. sanctuary is in worse condition; it had its high cornice executed on its O face as well as its gable, slowly reversed. The N face is more advanced. The collapsed E. gable shows a very clear lining beam, which can only be suspected in the symmetrical building.

The important S. library has a step on each gable; it does not have a false door to the east, but has a door with a decorative composition to the west. The gables, ruined, on which stopped its roof, were supported by a beam in lining. Under the niche horn, long faces 14 loopholes of 10 cm. sideways pierced the wall.

The whole is enclosed in a fairly strong and low sandstone wall. with cornice and coping in a curved angular roof, topped with closely spaced ears, It is cut 4. to the east by a gopura spanning a rectangle E.-O. maybe with floor. The pediment, in very wide undulating warhead, enclosed on each side the scene of the churning of the Sea of ​​Milk, surrounded by a domed and ribbed crawling ending in a remarkable 7-headed naga (fig. 34).

Behind the central tower is a pedestal with an accentuated groove cut by a double band, and L. de Lajonquière saw in the temple a fragment of a triple section linga, in red sandstone, which is quite rare.

From a decorative point of view, the corrugated pointed pediment of the E floor of the gopura is noteworthy, because it is very wide. Its crawling spread out in a domed and ribbed mass ends in a lion’s head with the naga emerging from it. The naga has seven rather round heads, well-marked necks, the floret independent; the middle one is very complicated. This crawling encloses a churning eardrum (fig. 34). The scene lays on a simple smooth band. The head of the naga is to the south, to the left, and the anterior part of the body is drawn by two asuras, the head by a third. The first two turn their backs to the spectator and the näga is himself turned towards the axis. Three deca, from the front, pull the body to the other side, the tail rolled up and knotted, held firmly by the last. The pivot, treated like a tree trunk with fine scaly bark, rests on the turtle, which is fairly flat, with its head to the left. Under his neck starts the forequarters of a horse (Uccaihçravas); behind the tail comes out a female figure (Lakşmi) who seems to be holding a flask.

There is another under the naga’s head, between two of the asuras, and a third, hanging a long-stemmed lotus flower, is to the left of the first. The vertex of the pivot is unclear. The top ends as a knot bearing a small Brahma. Perhaps it is a tree which blossoms behind the god and which determines two arched niches occupied by two apsaras flying in a collected pose; they thus hover above two gods seated in the Indian style, each on a lotus support. Both have four arms; Visnu is recognizable by the disc held in his upper right hand and the standing club in the lower left. Brahma is a counterpart to it; he has three heads with cylindrical buns: he holds a vertical attribute from his upper right arm, floating rosary from the left; the lower arms each carry a cylindrical attribute, that of the longer right arm.

The näga has seven heads, the central one very detailed, with a whole pattern of foliage in a policeman’s hat. The geniuses on the left wear a strong knot on the short sampot, a hairstyle with a tiny spherical bun, small earrings. The others, on the right, in the North, have the mukuta, more important pendants, a large panel with triple expansion in front of the sampot. This richer outfit seems to indicate them as the dera..

A thin fragment of pediment E. with the tortoise and the bottom of the pivot shows that the scene was repeated there.

The construction also has some special provisions. In order not to complicate an already quite abstruse description, we have not mentioned the strange arrangement of the angles and the entrance inside the central sanctuary. The sandstone wall bore directly on the doweled lintel of the door, at the face of the wall. To reduce the risk of this lintel breaking, a strong beam had been placed behind (fig. 26 C). It rotted and its ruin led to the fall of the facing, creating a truly irregular corbelled arch. You can clearly see the tearing break of the stone that remained broken on the lintel. The stones & have tilted inside and it is their absence that gives the impression of a corbelled arch. But the wall support mode is not the only quirk of this cella. In the angles with tenon on the upper surface. Below, on the E. and O. faces, there are mortises the width of the monoliths, placed astride the end, half above and half above. These mortises have the same side as the square of the monoliths and their depth is half that dimension.

To explain is to see in them the supports of a N.-E. beam. ceiling, engaging the head of the pillar pushed laterally to enter it and then wedged by the beam. For this supposed ceiling to leave the lintel of the door free, the piece of wood had to be higher than the mortises and probably that the ground för below, makes necessary besides for many velums indicated by the stones of suspension. This ceiling was also perhaps related to the support beam placed on the lintel.

The vault of the clearance is mounted in four enormous blocks of stone and the upper one is carved into a saddle gutter (fig. 26 E).

The monument offers a curious mixture of various types of roofing and various gable systems. To see the extrados in low warhead of the fictitious central nave of the sanctuary S. and the false-tailed ogive vaults of the lower naves of the building and the anterior room, one would be tempted to suppose that the roof of real tiles , or any other light material on the central nave, should have been curved as well. The mortises of the purlins of the middle cover cannot be of any help in solving this small problem, because they could have supported any form of rafters. Be that as it may, it is no less astonishing to see the mixture of gabled pediments, in corrugated ogive and in triangle, both in half with the facades of lower naves on the hall and on the sanctuary. Finally, one is struck by the low height of the triangular pediment on the S. sanctuary, as can be judged from its mass lying on the ground.

Here again, for lack of any inscription, the dating remains uncertain and it is only the character of the decoration, and in particular of the small columns and crawling, which make us relate the temple to the reigns of Jayavarman IV or V, to the last times of the x century or better to the first years of the xi.

The description of I. K., II, 35 which for the first mentions this monument, is exact, with the exception of the assumption on the bringing together of the doors of the room and the central sanctuary p. 36, l. 29 and some details of fig. 16, p. 36. I visited the temple on April 26, 1929, wrote the notice on August 29 of the same year, it was verified and completed on February 28, 1930

L’Art khmèr classique , monuments du quadrant Nord-Est, par Henri Parmentier, 1939

Rodney Charles LHuillier

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