Imagined pasts: anastylosis and the creation of the Thai national past

Abstract

The UNESCO World Heritage list, growing by some thirty entries a year, currently contains 756 entries for locations from around the world, some natural and some man-made, and of the man-made objects probably the most famous entries from Southeast Asia comprise the twelfth-century Khmer city of Angkor in Cambodia and the temple of the Borobudur in Java. These, together with other major monuments, like the Acropolis in Athens, and many other monuments, less imposing but equally important historically, were once in a ruinous condition due to natural or man-made forces. Their current completed and preserved state is the result of the application of a rigorous set of scientific, architectural and artistic principles designed to restore the monument to its original form by disassembling and then reassembling the monument after assuring the strength and stability of its foundations and structure. The use of new material is only sanctioned under particular conditions. This technique is known as “Anastylosis” and was only formalized in the 1930s after many successful and less successful attempts at earlier restorations, including that of the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. This thesis considers the development of the technique, starting with the pioneering work of the Dutch in Borobudur in the late nineteenth century and examines its application in detail to several ancient Khmer monuments in Northeast Thailand, in the context of the restoration of a country’s cultural heritage. Show more