Archéologues à Angkor

The site of Angkor, in Cambodia, spread out over more than 50 km2, currently welcomes more than 2 million visitors a year … and its physical integrity is at risk because of this. It has already greatly suffered in the past. This book, a catalogue of an exhibition at the musée Cernuschi, takes us back not too far in time, at the end of the XIXth century and the first half of the XXth. That was the time of pioneers who first discovered the site engulfed by colossal banyan and kapok trees, then –directed by Henri Marchal-revived them partially, through the anastylosis technique (which consists in removing and rebuilding a temple), learnt from archaeologists active in Indonesia. Aside from the captivating and «sublime» images of a jungle that was devouring man’s architecture, the book describes in detail the phases of the saving of the main temples by the specialists from the EFEO (French School of the Far-East). The latest was the Baphuon, a «mountain-temple» to soon be «inaugurated» following a long restoration.

• Archéologues à Angkor, photographies de l’Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient catalogue of the exhibition at the musée Cernuschi (until 2 January 2011), Paris musées, 2010, 240 p., 29 €.