Angkor's Temple Communities and the Logic of its Urban Landscape

Abstract

This chapter sets out the current state of knowledge on the dispersed suburban settlement patterns that surround Angkor’s civic-ceremonial core. This repetitive suburban settlement pattern consists of clusters of rice fields, ponds, and habitation mounds that were frequently orientated around local community temples. This chapter characterises such local temples as the primary marker of community across the Angkorian world which operated as centres of worship, politics, and daily ritual for peripheral agrarian communities. These temple communities are presented as a subject of study in their own right and considered distinctive units within Greater Angkor’s expansive low-density landscape. Using both archaeological and anthropological evidence, the chapter characterises these temple communities in space and time in terms of topographic features and phases of urban development. Local temples demonstrate different configurations, and these provide clues as to the operation and role of such local communities within Greater Angkor. Four major classes of temple community are identified and put forward as a subject for further study.