A recent article in The Phnom Penh Post suggests that researchers into Angkor’s past are finally getting a clue. For years, archaeologists have focused on the kings of the Angkor empire, and how they’ve been depicted in the great monuments, while ignoring the thousands of women portrayed on the walls of the temples, dismissing them as merely decorative ‘dancers’ or ‘angels’.

But now a team of researchers led by Kent Davis is taking a new look at these women, and trying to decide who they really were. Davis seems to suspect that the depictions may represent real women, just as many of the male statues are believed to represent the kings of Angkor.

He may be on to something. If you’ve ever heard of the accounts of Zhou Daguan (or Chou Ta Kuan), a Chinese emissary to the court of Angkor in 1296, you know that women played a key, even primary, role in everyday life in Angkor, especially when it came to commerce. One suspects that, much as in modern day Cambodia – and Thailand – it was women who actually got things done, while letting the men think they were in charge.

Posted by michael under Travel News
Tags: Angkor Wat
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