Preah Khan

Preah Khan means Sacred Sword is one of the largest complexes at Angkor with a maze of vaulted corridors, fine carvings and lichen-clad stonework. It is a good counterpoint to Ta Prohm, although it generally gets fewer visitors. Preah Khan was built by Jayavarman VII, and like Ta Prohm it is a place of towered enclosures and shoulder hugging corridors. Unlike Ta Prohm, however, the temple of Preah Khan is in a reasonable state of preservation and ongoing restoration efforts by the World Monuments Fund (WMF) should ensure stabilization.

Dated in year 1191, the central sanctuary of the temple was dedicated and a large stone stele, originally located within the first eastern enclosure, but now housed safely at Angkor Conservation, say much about Preah Khan’s role as a centre for workshop and learning. The temple was dedicated to 515 divinities and during the course of a year 18 major festivals took place here, requiring a team of thousands just to maintain the place.

Preah Khan covers a massive area, but the temple itself is within a rectangular enclosing wall of around 700m by 800m. Four processional walkways approach the gates of the temple, and these are bordered by another stunning depiction of the Churning Of The Ocean Of Milk, as in the approach to Angkor Thom, although most of the heads have disappeared. For the central sanctuary, four long, vaulted galleries extend in the cardinal directions. Many of the interior walls of Preah Khan were once coated with plaster that was held in place by holes in the stone. Today, many delicate carvings remain, including essai and apsara.