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Cambodian Scholar Claims Romans Visited Cambodia, Funded Ancient Temple

6/13/2017

15 Comments

 
​Before we begin today, I want to share something I learned. Remember how Graham Hancock dates the Sphinx based on the precession of the equinoxes, claiming that it goes back to around 10,500 BCE because that is when it faced Leo? I learned from Mark Fraser Pettigrew’s dissertation on The Wonders of the Ancients that a medieval scholar made a similar argument about dating Egyptian ruins. Apparently medieval writer Abu Jafar al-Idrisi, in his treatise on the pyramids, records that Abu ‘l-Mushrif ‘Alawi al-Hafafi (c. 1226) believed that the sun-disk hieroglyph represented the entrance of Altair into Cancer, so by calculating when that occurred by counting backward at a rate of movement of the stars of one degree per 100 years (Hipparchus’s estimate), he believed that Egyptian ruins dated back 20,000 years before his time, or to around 18,800 BCE. Using modern precession rates (one degree per 71.6 years), the figure would come out to 13,146 BCE.
 
This isn’t really any different than saying the Sphinx is a lion, so let’s calculate Leo’s position. It’s just amazing that in the Middle Ages an early Graham Hancock was already using the stars to create pseudo-history.
​Our other story for today is a bit of a weird one. Our story today comes to us from Cambodia, where the Phnom Penh Post has run an article alleging that medieval Cambodian temples preserve evidence of a lost voyage of Western sailors to the Indochinese peninsula. While there is a much better explanation, the urge to imagine undocumented diffusion from the West has somehow ended up dominating the discussion of Sambor Prei Kuk, the onetime capital of the Chenla Empire, the precursor state to the more famous Khmer Empire. The Chenla Empire succeeded the Funan Empire in the late sixth century CE and persisted until the early ninth century.
 
Anyway, Samor Prei Kuk is home to a three groups of medieval temples that are beautifully carved and something on the order of miniature forerunners of the astonishing complexes of the Angkor period. The city’s residents were Hindu and followers of the god Shiva. A ruined temple known as Kda Ouk features relief carvings of twelve men across its architrave, “but they have notable characteristics in common, including moustaches, long curly hair, big eyes, thick eyebrows and pointy noses,” according to the Post. This has caused a great deal of speculation.
Picture
One of the carvings. (Photo: Heng Chivoan / Phnom Penh Post)
​Photographer Heng Chivoan spoke to elderly locals who told him—probably correctly—that the faces were those of Indians. This is a perfectly logical conclusion given that the temple is Hindu and there are long-established trade links between Cambodia and the subcontinent. Indeed, the photograph provided shows a man whose facial features and hair style (including mustache) closely resemble styles seen in Indian art of the period. It is the most common explanation in the archaeological literature.
 
The Post investigated the “truth” behind the sculptures by asking a range of locals for their opinion. The results ranged from sad to depressing. First up, a 59-year-old police officer: “The busts look like the Spanish people, if one asks me, but I never learned that Spanish people came to Cambodia in ancient times.” After that, they spoke to Dr. Chen Chanratana, a Sorbonne-trained archaeologist from the University of Paris specializing in Cambodian history and the founder of the Kerdomnel Khmer Group, a cultural preservation society. You will never guess who he thinks the relief carvings represent: “based on archaeological excavations elsewhere in the former lands of the Khmer Empire, he concluded that the reliefs depict men from either the Roman Empire or Persia – two of the Chenla Kingdom’s trading partners, along with India and China.”
 
Coins from Rome and Persia have been found in Cambodia, testifying to the far-flung trade networks of the first century CE, but the temple and the Chenla Kingdom are at least four centuries too late. This doesn’t bother Chen: “Most Cambodian sculptures and carvings receive influence from India, but the busts at Kda Ouk Temple do not possess their features. Therefore, they can only be Roman or Persian,” he said, illogically. He added that the Romans or Persians financed the construction of the temple and had their faces carved on it as acknowledgement. So what did they do for 400 years? Who knows?
 
Persians are of course more plausible than Romans since the Persians were still around in the early Middle Ages. I suppose Chen might have been thinking of Byzantines, though they are not known for regular Asian excursions. Arab-Persians have had documented contact with Southeast Asia since the Middle Ages. Now, on the other hand, it is true that Roman coins have been found in southeast Asia. A coin of Antoninus Pius was found at Oc-Eo and a later coin was uncovered at U-Thong in Thailand. Some seals of Roman type were found at Khuan Lukpad. Most archaeologists, however, believe that they were trade items diffused from the well-known Roman contact with India, not evidence of Roman travels.
 
Prof. Sambo Manara, a Cambodian historian, agreed with Chen that Romans or Persians built the building, but he believes it was not a temple but rather a playhouse for chess matches. This sounds really stupid until you hear the reasoning behind it, which speaks to the underlying political motivation to see ancient Cambodia as being coequal with the great civilizations of the West. In Manara’s words: “People from those [Western] empires would not have played chess with Cambodian players unless they had seen them as equal to themselves. Therefore, this argument could confirm the long-standing speculation about the prosperity and greatness of the Khmer Empire.”
 
Fortunately, not everyone in Cambodia is a nationalist willing to manipulate history out of national pride. An archaeologist and former Culture Ministry official in Cambodia, Dr. Michel Tranet, confirmed to the Post that the faces are those of south Indians. The irony is a bit rich, though, because in the past Tranet used to offer full-throated defenses of Cambodian history against efforts by neighboring countries to minimize its past glory.
15 Comments
Americanegro
6/13/2017 11:16:19 am

Especially since it's well documented that there are plenty of pre-Khmer Empire Sanskrit, Pali, and Tamil loanwords in the Cambodian language, the simplest explanation is the best. It was aliens. I mean Indians.

https://www.google.com/search?q=sanskrit+loanwords+in+khmer&oq=sanskrit+loanwords+in+khmer&aqs=chrome..69i57.9972j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=91&ie=UTF-8

Reply
Only Me
6/13/2017 11:19:45 am

Roman bust? I thought it looks more like Vlad Tepes. I'm probably wrong, but I don't recall seeing art or sculpture where the Romans depicted themselves that way. I doubt they would commission such a depiction either.

Another claim based on thin evidence for nationalistic pride.

Reply
Bob Jase
6/13/2017 12:55:59 pm

You're not the only one who saw that resemblance.

Clearly this is the fabled Temple of Vampires

https://archive.org/details/ILoveAMystery-TempleOfVampires

Reply
Denise
6/15/2017 03:24:42 pm

Hah! I thought the exact same thing.

Reply
Pacal
6/13/2017 02:58:53 pm

It does appear that some Roman merchants may have gotten has far as southern China. (Canton Region) In fact that knowledge is indicated in the Geography of Ptolemy, (c. 200 C.E.).

And it is known that in the late 6th century Byzantine missionaries brought back from China silkworms. Further it is known that in 166 C.E. an embassy from Rome arrived at the Chinese Imperial court. There are Chinese records of visits in 226 C.E. and 284 C.E.

The 226 visit is especially interesting in the context of this post in that the Chinese account records the visit of man the Chinese called Lun, (Probably Leon), who arrived by sea via Cochin China. (Cochin China is the southern part of Vietnam and at the time, c. 200 C.E., was largely part of the kingdom of Funan.)

For more information see The Ancient Explorers, Revd. Edition, M. Cary, E.H. Warmington, Penguin Books, London, 1963. (The Chinese material is pp. 104-106.)

Reply
V
6/15/2017 02:27:18 pm

...hate to break it to you, but "Run" or "Lun" is also a not-uncommon Asian name. Given that there is no "L" in Chinese, it's not just pushing it a bit but actually STUPID to think that "Lun" most be "Leon." The Chinese language is capable of distinguishing syllables, you know; it would have been recorded as something closer to "Ri-on" or "Ryon," or alternately "Li-on" or "Lyon," depending on what transliteration to English letters you used. "He arrived by sea from Cochin China" is not convincing evidence that a merchant named Leon sailed all the way from Europe to China in 226 CE.

It's obviously not impossible for people from Rome or what used to be the Roman Empire to make it to China, but it would have been rare at best, not the kind of venture that involved building invasive temples as claimed--which we know the Romans did love to do, but in their OWN style, to their OWN gods, and we're also aware that all of their MILITARY attempts into Asia were not particularly successful.

Reply
Americanegro
6/15/2017 05:47:37 pm

Jeez, I leave this thread unattended for a few days...

"Given that there is no "L" in Chinese..." Where did you go to school son? Everything Completely Wrong University? There's Ls in Mandarin, there's Ls in Cantonese, there's Ls in Ancient Chinese, there's Ls in Middle Chinese.

"...hate to break it to you"

Here's "Leon" rendered in Chinese with minimal loss of pronunciation accuracy: 類恩 and it's okay as sinicizings of European names go, i.e. not offensive and I worked in one nice character. Another version would be 萊昂. "No Ls in Chinese"! That right there's funny, I don't care who you are.

You will note that it starts with an "l" sound, as do the words on the short list below:

樂 Lè surname Le

樂 lè happy / cheerful / to laugh

劉 Liu surname Liu

例題 lìtí problem or question solved for illustrative purposes in the classroom / practice question (used in preparation for an exam) / sample question

李 Lǐ surname Li

李 lǐ plum

老師 lǎoshī teacher

林 Lín surname Lin / Japanese surname Hayashi

林 lín woods / forest / CL: 片 / circle(s) (i.e. specific group of people) / a collection (of similar things)

蘭 Lán surname Lan / abbr. for Lanzhou 蘭州|兰州, Gansu

Joe Scales
6/15/2017 11:08:46 pm

I would have limited my response to only two words:

Lucy Liu

Finn
6/16/2017 04:19:14 am

I can get it in one ;)

Liaoning :D

(home to some incredible fossilised feathered dinosaurs)

Americanegro
6/16/2017 11:18:47 am

Yes, I could have gone with Laozi, Bruce Lee, or Chou En-lai, but when someone puts a "Mock Me" sign on their back it's only polite to mock them and mock them thoroughly.

An Over-Educated Grunt
6/16/2017 01:11:30 pm

... Liu Bei... Lu Bu... Zhuge Liang... Lao-tse... Shaolin...

Americanegro
6/16/2017 02:58:00 pm

Now you're just piling on, but I applaud the motivation. Just don't ever let me catch you fuckin' sayin' "Soon Zoo" like ya think you know what you're talking about.

Pacal
6/16/2017 10:45:12 pm

First I was not defending in the slightest the absurd idea of Temples being built by Romans and Greeks in Cambodia. I was reporting what I read in a book about ancient exploration which reported visits from Ta-Ts'in, also called Chi'ih-San, by the Chinese and which was their names for the Roman Empire. The visit in 166, I've read about in other books has definitely a visit by Roman merchants. Further it is my understanding that the Merchant called "Lun" is stated to have come from Ta-Ts'in.

Further I never claimed such embassy like visits were common, in fact if the Chinese sources are anything to go on they were in fact rare.

Finally I note that you have said nothing about the story, almost certainly true, that Byzantine Monks smuggled out silkworm eggs from China during the reign of Justinian I in the mid 6th century. Which has a baring on contact between Rome and China.

Americanegro
6/17/2017 03:46:35 pm

I'm by no means attacking or mocking you, but I'm not entirely sold on Ta-Ts'in meaning "the Roman Empire". This book has some interesting things to say on the topic, and goes on to present an account of a 1902 journey to Cambodia. Worth a look.

https://books.google.com/books?id=oM4VAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA349&lpg=PA349&dq=Ta-Ts%27in&source=bl&ots=Z84fpOI-JT&sig=Pra2lGZ3IsHxxbTPqHqEMXMTOf4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjxmae_0MXUAhXLOD4KHeuvAYcQ6AEIVjAJ#v=onepage&q=Ta-Ts'in&f=false

A C
6/16/2017 09:17:43 am

There's no reason to assume that Indian art style and fashion means the figures being represented are Indian. Its much more likely that they're local Cambodian elites who dressed in imported fashions and hired foreign or foreign trained artists to depict them. There's no evidence that the spread of Hinduism (and later Buddhism) were brought by invading of Indian rulers or that any displacement of local elites occurred.

So it would depend on if the figures are supposed to represent elites, who would probably be locals, or specialists like priests and scholars who under an imported culture would be more likely to be of immigrant background.

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