Fowler Talk: Reconceptualizing Angkor

Social infrastructure played a central role in the formation, maintenance, and expansion of Angkor between the 9th and 15th centuries CE. While Angkor is celebrated for its urban planning, monumental architecture, and sophisticated water management systems, the relationship between religion and governance remains a topic of debate. This lecture approaches Angkorian infrastructure not as separate realms of state and religion, but as a material expression of political ethics and social responsibility.
The talk focuses on two transformative periods. Under Yaśovarman I (889–910 CE), royal foundations supported population growth while accommodating religious pluralism. Later, under Jayavarman VII (1181–1218 CE), governance was guided by a Buddhist framework centered on compassion, expressed through a network of temples, reservoirs, hospitals, and educational institutions. These foundations served as sites of worship, community support, health care, learning, and political authority.
By framing Angkorian infrastructure as an “archaeology of compassion,” where religious practice, social provisioning, and statecraft converged, Dr. Heng presents a social infrastructure approach to understanding premodern governance and political legitimacy.
Piphal Heng is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Yale University, specializing in Southeast Asian archaeology. He was a UC Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow (2023–2025) at University of California Los Angeles. His research examines urbanism, political economy, and religious transformation in Cambodia, with particular attention to the Angkorian and post-Angkorian periods (9th–18th centuries CE). Integrating geospatial technologies—including LiDAR, remote sensing, and spatial analysis—with archaeological fieldwork, Dr. Heng investigates long-term landscape use, settlement patterns, and urban infrastructure. He currently directs the Phum Archaeology Project, which explores the social and spatial dynamics of low-density urbanism in the Lower Mekong Basin.
This program is co-sponsored by UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute, UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher Fowler Museum at UCLA