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73 Chapter 6 The Archaeology of Champa, North of Hue — Towards New Perspectives Emmanuel Guillon Abstract Two important new Cham discoveries in Thua Thien-Hue Province, Vietnam have drawn attention to the archaeological remains of this part of ancient Champa. Analysis of these remains, including iconography, architecture, epigraphy, and settlements such as Trivikramapura, gives us a new light on this part of Champa. This analysis also provides us with a better idea about the role of Mahayanist Buddhism there. There have been no excavations in this area, despite the important archaeological sites, and our main knowledge comes often from letters sent by amateur scholars to Parmentier at the beginning of the twentieth century. The site where the Van Trach Hoa pedestal was found, now in the Hue Museum, is a good example of the research potential in this field. Preliminary Remarks Eighteen years ago, few scholars were interested in Cham studies: we could count them on the fingers of one hand. One important exception was the pioneering work of Taylor (1983, 1992). There were, here and there, occasional descriptions of Champa in general books and papers on Southeast Asia, but these mainly referred to, or superficially criticized, French work of the first third of the twentieth century. Otherwise they merely said that ‘everything still remained to be done’. For instance in a wellknown , yet rather unfair text, Davidson (1979: 213–4) wrote: The study of Champa is still in its infancy. Its inscriptions ... demand reinvestigation. Its history ... needs to be rewritten .... The study of its art and architecture ... still requires detailed attention .... Our knowledge of Champa remains so fragmentary, vague and inaccurate that the whole subject must be reworked. But since about 1993, there has been some revival of Cham studies; at first through the excavations such as those at Tra Kieu and Go Cam in the Tu Bon valley made by a joint British-VietnameseJapanese team (Glover et al. 1995, 1996, 2006) and various chance finds, mainly in Quang Nam Province. There were other ad hoc excavations, such as the ones at the southern basement of the south tower of Khuong My (Guillon 2003: 278 and fig. 9; Ho Xuan Tinh and Nguyen Thuong Hy 2001: 3–6), at Mỹ Sơn, and at the citadel of Binh Dinh. Secondly, an international association was created in Paris under the acronym SACHA (Société des Amis du Champa Ancien — The Society of the Friends of Ancient Champa),1 whose aim is to publicize all new work in the field and to bring together the world’s Cham specialists. Thirdly, and more recently, some papers in international conferences or workshops have presented different ways of thinking and different interpretations of Champa; for instance the (still unpublished) Workshop on New Scholarship on Champa, held in Singapore in August 2004; the exhibition held at the Musée Guimet in 2005–06, Tresors d’Art du Vietnam — la Sculpture du Champa, V–XV sciècle (Baptiste and Zephir 2005), and the International Conference on Champa held at the Musée Cernusci in Paris October 2005 (SACHA Newsletter 12, 2006). Whether or not 06฀ISEAnn.indd฀฀฀73 6/25/08฀฀฀10:33:34฀AM 74 EMMANUEL GUILLON these conferences and publications have brought any radically new understanding of ancient Champa is not entirely clear to me, and so in our work at SACHA, we start to reconsider the interpretations of Cham art, history, and archaeology. In this paper I propose extending this revival of interest to northern Champa. Some Recent Excavations and Chance Discoveries The Foundations at Chien Dang In December 2000, excavations (Figure 6.1) were made in front of the three kalan, under the supervision of Ho Xuan Tinh, Director of Quang Nam Museum. These excavations were made because, while digging the soil to make a garden, workers discovered a wall of bricks under the earth. Between November and December of that year 86 statues and fragments of deities, goddesses, musicians, kinnara, seated lions, and other figures were found. All were of the same style (Ho Xuan Tinh and Fig 6.1 Excavations of Chien Dang, December 2000. (Photo E. Guillon) Nguyen Thuong Hy 2001: 7–13). This important discovery indicates that this sanctuary was much more complex and extensive than we had previously thought, and can thus help to increase our understanding of the site: in front of the three remaining kalan still standing, there were other monuments resting on stone basements. Once again, the monuments were found to have a...

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