October, 2024 - Cornelia has been awarded a research grant by the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), Karun Thakar Fund. Her research will be on the origin of Cambodian ikat and brocade patterns.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - August 18, 2024
Are Preah Khan Figures the Sister Queens? New Book Presents Fresh Evidence
San Francisco, California – Scholars and locals alike have long speculated that the bas relief in Preah Khan revered as Jayarajadevī and Indradevī are Jayavarman VII’s queens. The 2024 edition of Through the Eyes of a Queen – the Women of the Royal Court at Angkor, released this week, presents new evidence.
These are the facts we have. One figure is in her own shrine and stands on a makara; she’s been portrayed as the goddess Ganga. Her face looks like bas relief on the Bayon and Banteay Ch’mar believed to be Indradevī. The second is in an adjoining space, but a board blocks our view of what she’s standing on. Her face looks like a statue believed to be Jayarajadevī. Both figures are regally dressed.
“And that’s the key,” says Cornelia Bagg Srey, author of the new book, and A Pocket Guide to Cambodian Silk. “No one looked at what they’re wearing – at their skirts. First, the pattern is foreign. Second, the two figures are wearing the same pattern; at Angkor, we just don’t see that. Third, only these two figures wear this pattern. Fourth, the fabric doesn’t look like the chorabab brocade in the “tails” the queens wore over their skirts in the 12th century. Fifth, because the pattern is asymmetric, it could be ikat (hol); this would be the first we see in Cambodia, and it would have been reserved for royalty. And there’s a sixth piece of evidence – the bas relief over the first figure’s head.”
Srey compared the pattern in the skirts, a flower on a stem, to every flower found in Cambodia today – all 525 of them. She got one match – Royal Poinciana. Native only to Madagascar, off the southeast coast of Africa and southwest of India.
The Royal Poinciana flower and the stem, at Preah Khan and in life.
A foreign pattern, worn only by two figures at Angkor, that doesn’t appear to be chorabab. Srey reasoned that it was imported, for royalty. But was it imported for the sister queens? It appears that a single length of fabric was split to make two sampot – a common practice among sisters today.
But was it single ikat (hol)? Srey conferred with the former director of the Mekong Ganga Cooperation Asian Traditional Textiles Museum, Dr. Archana Shastri. Together they came to the conclusion that the skirts could be single ikat (late 12th century is early for double ikat to have reached Angkor). She conferred with Makara Lok of Nara Silk, one of Cambodia’s oldest chorabab-weaving families; Lok learned how to make single ikat from Kikuo Morimoto. Together they came to the conclusion that the skirts could be single ikat.
But Dr. Shastri thinks that it’s more likely that the skirts were painted or block printed, and Makara Lok thinks it’s more likely that they were brocade (chorabab).
The pattern is not symmetric – each flower is a little different. Makara Lok tried several times to replicate the pattern in chorabab, but all of her test pieces were symmetric; she’ll try again in 2025. The pattern could have been painted, or block printed if multiple blocks were used; the fabric may have been the precursor of chintz. Or it could have been ikat.
“I think it was ikat,” says Srey, “because ikat-making later exploded in Cambodia; every woman who can afford hol has it. And I saw an ikat sari like the Preah Khan skirts many years ago, but the flower was not Royal Poinciana. But Dr. Shastri may be right, or Makara Lok may be right. It’s difficult for us to confer; Dr. Shastri is in India, Makara Lok is in Cambodia, and I’m in California. I’ll continue my research, meet with both of them, and try to find other experts. But there are few people who know both chorabab and ikat, as Makara Lok does, and both Cambodian and Indian fabrics, as Dr. Shastri does.”
But it’s not just the skirts that indicate that the figures are Jayavarman VII’s queens. Over the head of the one believed to be Indradevī is a roof, blackened by soot. “The closest match I found,” says Srey, “is a roof in a bas relief at Ta Prohm – a palace roof”.
The bas relief at Preah Khan and a palace and queens at Ta Prohm. Both temples were built by Jayavarman VII. In both photos the naga heads at the end of the roof are on the left, and the roof tiles are on the right.
Srey has asked the World Monuments Fund to clean the bas relief of the roof so that researchers can see it clearly. And she’s asked them to remove the board in front of the figure believed to be Jayarajadevī so that everyone can see what she’s standing on. (The board is being used as an altar, but the floor underneath it could be used instead.)
“None of the six points I make in my book,” says Srey, “is proof positive that these bas relief are the sister queens. But they are the strongest evidence we may ever have.”
The new edition of her book contains information about three more queens than the previous one. “Their stories are really interesting,” she says. “One was married to the heir apparent. When he died, she was married to his older brother - the king. When he died, she was married to his younger brother - and he became king. Then, he was brutally killed. I can’t help but wonder what happened to her. Widowed three times, and childless.”
She continues, “Everyone interested in Angkor will want a copy of this book. I’ve listed all the errors I’ve found in publications over the years – my list is four pages long. I name not the writer who got it wrong, but the one who got it right. For example, the Khmer alphabet evolved not from Devanagari, but from Pallava; the scholar who got it right was Marilia Albanese. The ‘elaborate’ hairstyles of the women on the walls of Angkor Wat were actually very easy to create; it was Sappho Marchal who got it right. The Chan ‘flower’ is not a flower, but the four dried leaves on the top of the Chan fruit; it was tour guide Thy Khieu and Makara Lok who got it right.” Srey also explains how she does linguistic research, so that other scholars can do it, too. “I just want everyone to understand what they see when they go to Angkor.”
The 2024 edition of Through the Eyes of a Queen and A Pocket Guide to Cambodian Silk were both released on Amazon on August 10. They will not be available in Cambodian bookstores (see www.SinghaBooks.com / Books), but Amazon will ship to Cambodia.
Cornelia Bagg Srey’s other books include The Smell of Water, her husband’s account of how he survived the Khmer Rouge period, and the sequel, No Front Line – Searching for Home in a War Zone. Her website is www.SinghaBooks.com.