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Chapter 2: How Many Face Towers in the Bayon?
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9 Chapter 2 How Many Face Towers in the Bayon? Olivier Cunin Abstract The face towers of the Bayon temple are indisputably the great plastic innovation of Khmer art and architecture from the end of the Angkorian period. The towers of the Bayon, the state temple of King Jayavarman VII (1181–c. 1218), have been the focus of much research into the identification of the deity whose face they bear and their possible symbolic significance. This paper critically reviews the current count of 49 face towers on the Bayon and five more on the surrounding gateways of Angkor Thom. A comparative study of the Bayon and Banteay Chmar temples allows us to reconstruct the original of the Bayon’s largely ruined outer gallery. By making an inventory of the crumbled carved blocks of stone stacked in piles inside and outside the Bayon, evidence can be assembled for ascertaining that the Bayon originally had up to 59 face towers with most of the additions surmounting the outer gallery. Moreover, the stones from the crumbled towers show notable differences in design from those now visible on the Bayon. A Major Architectural Innovation While attempting to envisage the original Bayon with its dramatic superstructure of towers with giant faces (Figure 2.1), I traveled to the large and contemporary, but little visited temple of Banteay Chmar, near the modern border with Thailand (Figure 2.2). The relatively undisturbed ruins of Fig 2.1 Bayon face tower. Fig 2.2 Map of Khmer zone sites with face towers. 02 ISEA.indd 9 6/6/08 9:54:52 AM 10 OLIVIER CUNIN Banteay Chmar yielded precedents and methods that allowed a breakthrough at the Bayon. Banteay Chmar and the equally remote Preah Khan of Kompong Svay are the only temple complexes outside Angkor featuring face towers, the major architectural innovation in the Bayon style. Having first created the tower with giant faces in the Bayon, Jayavarman went on to add this revolutionary feature to most of his other temples in Angkor — Ta Prohm, Banteay Kdei, Ta Som, and the gates of Angkor Thom city. The accepted count of 49 face towers at the Bayon, established by Jacques Dumarçay (Dumarçay 1973: 23), includes a third level tower (shown as 17 on Figure 2.3) without superstructure but assumed to have borne faces, and a third level eastern entrance tower (shown as 23), which has collapsed but must have been symmetrical with the adjacent, extant, eastern entrance towers with faces (22 and 37). The Pavilions of the Bayon Outer Gallery The key question to resolve, in attempting a reconstruction of the temple when it first arose at the center of Jayavarman’s fortified capital of Angkor Thom in the last two decades of the twelfth century, is whether or not the outer gallery pavilions, which provide access to its multiple courtyards and sanctuaries, were surmounted with face towers. If they were, our estimate of the number of Bayon face towers must increase significantly, and we must envisage a different architectural profile for the newly-built temple as it was known to the citizens of Angkor. Dumarçay, in the last extensive architectural study of the temple, concluded that although the Bayon’s outer gallery pavilions could potentially have supported additional face towers, the Khmer master builders must have decided against taking the risk of supporting the required weight of masonry there, because the pavilions had only four supporting pillars to hold up the roof and any superstructure (Dumarçay 1973: 26). Dumarçay had difficulty however with the alternative he proposed for the pavilions — cross-vaulted roofs. He could not find a satisfactory linkage for such structures, and as a result did not produce an elevation plan of the first level of the temple (Dumarçay 1967: 11). This Fig 2.3 Accepted count of Bayon face towers. 02 ISEA.indd 10 6/6/08 9:54:53 AM [44.200.210.43] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 12:41 GMT) 11 HOW MANY FACE TOWERS IN THE BAYON? inconclusive result means the question of the superstructure of the outer gallery pavilions remains open. Furthermore, Dumarçay’s assumption about the outer gallery pavilions fails to address the fact that while there are face towers and other heavy superstructures still standing on the second and third levels of the temple (where they are supported on solid foundations), the entire superstructure of the outer gallery pavilions has collapsed onto...