Koh Ker

King Jayavarman IV (921-941) erected his capital at Koh Ker (Chok Gargyar ), some 60 km northeast of Angkor. In the South of a walled city is the Rahal, a rectangular water basin.

At its north face is Prasat Thom, with the Main Temple and the Pyramid.
More temples are arranged around the Rahal, and along the road to Angkor (to the South).
The so called linga temples are in a line from the northeast corner of the Rahal to the North.
Almost all the towers are ruined.

Visit

Visitors will come to Koh Ker from the South. Recommended order of visit: Prasat Thom - Prasat Thoeng (linga temple) - Prasat Krachap - Prasat Damrei - Prasat Kraham - Prasat Chen - Prasat Neang Khmau - Prasat Chen. Temporarly you may not climb up the Pyramid. Restaurants and toilets are just east of Prasat Thom.

Click the map to enlarge.

Prasat Thom with the Pyramid

The buildings are arranged symmetrically to an axis, extending some 600 m. Beginning at the East:

• Two 'palaces', , each consisting of four halls arranged in a rectangle
• The main gate, a complex of towers and halls or colonnades
• Prasat Kraham, the east gate of the Main Temple, a huge gate tower. It sheltered a sandstone statue of the dancing Shiva, double life size
• The eastern causeway with collonades and naga on the ground
• The Main Temple. The first enclosure is covered by an ensemble of 9 brick towers, 3 m square, on a T-shaped platform; the entrance doors are made of sandstone, false doors are made of brick. 5 towers make the first row, 4 towers make the second row. The central tower in the first row has a mandapa. The platform is surrounded by 12 small brick towers in three groups. At the East are two fire shrines.
• The Pyramid. Six tiers, 36 m high (Angkor Wat: 23 m, plus towers), has one stairway at the East.
  The base of the tower and the lingam are adorned by life-size full reliefs of standing lions.
  By an inscription we know that the lingam was 4.5 m tall, its diameter was 1.5 m. If made of sandstone, the weight was 24 tons (!); perhaps it was made of metal which has vanished. The tower itself was probably made of wood.

Architectural innovations at Koh Ker

Koh Ker is an episode in Khmer history of little more than twenty years. But within these short time many revolutionary features in Khmer architecture and art were created:

• The huge dimensions: The pyramid is the highest, the lingam was the biggest, and the statue of the dancing Shiva was the tallest ever in Cambodia.
• For the first time we have narrating reliefs, depicting mythological scenes.
• The combination of brick, sandstone and laterite as building materials.
• New ground plans of the temples, different to what we can see at Angkor.
  For the first time a mandapa is placed in front of the main tower.
• Gables ending in spirals.
• Halls are joined with the wall behind to colonnades, the predecessors of the galleries.
• The alignment on one axis.
• Statues (from which many fragments are still in the debris) are unsymmetrical and with a dynamic expression. (Some artefacts are now in the National Museum Phnom Penh.)

Access

The best road is via Dam Daek (RN 6) to the junction near Beng Mealea. Here you turn left to Svay Leu village, from where you go right. From here the road is mostly in a good condition. 2 to 3 hours from Siem Reap. Entrance fee $10. There are plain restaurants and a toilet.
After the checkpoint, Prasat Pram, the first temple, is to the left. Following the road you can visit more than 30 temples and ruins in a circuit.

References

Lawrence Palmer Briggs, The Ancient Khmer Empire, 1951, Bangkok 1999, p. 117-122.
Henri Stierlin, Angkor, p. 137-139.
Vittorio Roveda, Images of the Gods, Bangkok 2005, p. 340-43.
Claude Jacques, Philippe Lafond, The Khmer Empire, Bangkok 2007, p. 107-136.

Photo Album

External links:
Wikipedia
MAGNUM Photos