A team of Cambodian, French and US archeologists has discovered human bone fragments from the Angkorian era in what they believe is the second cemetery of that time ever to be excavated.
The team made their discovery during a month-long dig, which ended in mid-March, at the site of an Angkorian hospital, said Christophe Pottier, an archeologist with the Ecole francaise d’Extreme-Orient, the French government institution that has researched Cambodian culture since the 1900s.
The facility, which is located between the West Baray reservoir and the west wall of the fortified city of Angkor Thom at Angkor, was one of 102 hospitals built by King Jayavarman VII after his coronation in 1181.
About 20 stone carvings and 50 hospital sanctuaries have been found throughout the Khmer empire’s former territory, which extended into today’s Vietnam, Thailand and Laos.
Although it is known from stone inscriptions that the hospitals were built according to a standard plan, their actual layout and structures have so far not been confirmed at hospital sites, which prompted this excavation at Angkor.
The facility excavated was first cleared of vegetation by the EFEO in the 1920s, and reclaimed by the jungle shortly after, said Pottier, who is the excavation project’s co-director.
The team explored 19 locations in a zone of approximately 200 square meters, digging two-square-meter areas to a depth of at least two meters, both to map out the site and to try to learn how the hospital operated.
While they found enough elements to determine the layout of the complex, the researchers also uncovered human bone fragments from what appears to be a cemetery.
“Finding the cemetery was the icing on the cake,” Pottier said.
The fragments, made brittle and fragile by the acidity of the soil, had to be handled with infinite care, said Rethy Chhem, an anthropology professor and head of radiology at the University of Western Ontario in Canada and the project’s co-director. The bones will be analyzed to determine the sex and age of the people at their death, he said.
“Also we need to know whether they were buried or cremated” to find out the influence of Buddhism on funeral rites at the time, he said.
Comparing the bones’ DNA to genetic material from Southeast Asia available in databases may help provide information about population migrations in the region, he added.
The series of tests will be conducted both at the University of Western Ontario and at the University of Chicago, said Edward Swenson, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago who worked on the dig.
The excavation yielded other unanticipated elements, such as the remains of an elephant skeleton in a water basin in the complex and a large quantity of carbon deposits that will help date the site, he said.
“Of course, finding a French colonial coin from 1921 in an upper level of the [water] basin fill was a big surprise,” he added.
The team also discovered pieces of iron knives, bronze rings and ceramic vessels at the burial sites, and shards of imported Chinese porcelain, Swenson said.
The roof tiles unearthed show that, even though the buildings seemed to have been small, the facility was important enough to have wooden structures with tiled roofs and not just thatch-style huts, he said.
Tests and studies, which will include analyzing plant samples to get information on herbal remedies used at the hospital, should be completed within a year.
The first Angkorian cemetery was researched in the 1960s, but the results of that excavation were never published, Pottier said.
The team hopes that results will add information on the everyday customs and habits of people at Angkor, he said.
Although the Khmers left hundreds of monuments as a legacy of their power and culture, everyday life at the time of Angkor remains an enigma.
A great deal is known about the Cambodians after Angkor, Pottier said, but little has been uncovered regarding people’s lives during Angkor’s zenith between the ninth and 15th centuries.
