In reflecting on Phanom Rung with Soumya James, we sought permission from Hiram Woodward to post this piece published in 1971 in the Bangkok Standard Magazine, which he kindly gave along with an accompanying note. Writing not long after the looting occurred, his commentary accents the immediate effects of such dislocations and destructions on cultural heritage in the region.
“The Tragedy of Phnom Rung,” published in the Bangkok World’s magazine supplement, 20 November 1971, was written after a visit made at a time when I had already decided that something should be written about the state of the monument. On this visit, when I was a guest in the automobile driven by Dr. Joe D. Wray, his wife Beth (one of the authors of Ten Lives of the Buddha, 1972), and their family, I carried along copies of the images published in Report of the Survey and Excavations of Ancient Monuments in North-Eastern Thailand, Part Two, 1967, and took new photographs, taken at the same angles. (This report, incidentally, had passed across my desk in 1966, in Peace Corps days, after it had already been typeset, and I made some corrections.) The two-page spread appeared under a pseudonym (not uncommon then) because I thought, given its somewhat political tone, that I should remain at arm’s length. Actually, I made no attempt to hide my identity, and I discussed the content with a senior Fine Arts Department official both before and after the article appeared. I was wrong, of course, about the date of Phnom Rung (in proper Thai transliteration, Phanom Rung), which was a construction of the Angkor Wat period. My recollection is that I was uncertain about the date and went ahead without checking it out.
After returning to the U. S. in February 1972 I shared the article with various people, to no apparent effect. Then Hugo Munsterberg’s Dover picture book, Sculpture of the Orient, appeared, with an illustration of the major portion of the reclining Vishnu lintel, stating that it was the property of James W. Alsdorf. I did not realize that it had already been put on view at the Art Institute of Chicago.
I have today a precious memento, a laminated key ring, with a view of Phanom Rung on one side, a photograph of “Phra Narai banthom sin” (Lord Vishnu reclining on the sea), on the other.
Hiram Woodward, 1 May 2024
“The Tragedy of Phnom Rung”, by D.W. Ward
An art historian looks at what has happened to this great eleventh century temple since 1960
Between the construction of the Baphuon at Angkor in the mid-eleventh century and the year 1100, the most important monuments built inside the borders of the Khmer empire were the temple of Phnom Rung hill and the Buddhist temple of Phimai. Both are in northeastern Thailand. The smaller and lesser-known of the two, Phnom Rung temple is magnificently situated on a great landmark of a hill in the southern part of Buriram province, a hill from which there are lovely views south to the mountains that mark the modern Cambodian border. In this area beautiful bronze images were made as early as the seventh or eighth century, and through here once ran a highway from Angkor to Phimai. Below the summit of this hill there is a long and broad stone pathway which leads to a great flight of steps, still flanked by huge Nagas or mythical snakes. One climbs these stairs to the summit, where a passageway leads through a covered gallery to a sacred square enclosure. There stands the main sanctuary, which once held the principal image and was once surmounted by a tall tower. This tower was visible from a great distance, and was a constant reminder to the farmers on the plain below of the nearness of the gods.
Less than two hundred years after the completion of the temple the political system and religious beliefs which had assured its upkeep died. Vines and trees grew where priests had once held ceremonies, and the stones of the tower fell down one by one. In the early years of this century French archaeologists who were cataloguing Khmer temples visited Phnom Rung hill (“one of the most remarkable productions of Cambodian art,” said one about some of the carving), but neither they nor their successors took many photographs for scholarly journals. And the people living in the area treated the ruin left by their ancestors with respect.
As a result, when the Fine Arts Department made a survey of the ancient monuments of northeastern Thailand in 1960, at Phnom Rung it found a monument which was both little-known and, apart from the ravages of nature, more or less intact, its beautiful carvings worn by the elements but otherwise as vibrant and exciting as they were nine hundred years ago.
Nine hundred years of nature are no match, however, for eleven years of man. More of Phnom Rung temple has been destroyed since 1960 than in all the previous nine hundred years. There is a chain of profit which stretches from the helpless monument to the great museums and private collections of Europe and America. Small pieces have been chipped off and carried away; lintels of immense weight have been spirited away as if by magic (by helicopter, some say). If a comparable monument in Europe—one of the great Romanesque cathedrals, Vezelay or Moissac—were to be so systematically pillaged the uproar would be considerable. As it is, however, a Western museum which has purchased a piece of Phnom Rung temple no doubt considers itself richer. But it is poorer, and we are all poorer, for a part of our cultural heritage has been destroyed forever. Even a massive return of stolen goods will never undo the damage of the past decade. It has been a tragic period in the history of this great building.
Ward, D.W. “The Tragedy of Phnom Rung.” Bangkok Standard Magazine (distributed with Bangkok World), November 20, 1971.