Everyday Life

Students learn to:

* describe everyday life in the Angkor / Khmer Empire

The buildings we see today at Angkor are all religous buildings. There are no traces of ordinary Khmer homes from the period. Although these houses cannot be seen, evidence that they existed is clear at the larger temples. On the left and right of the massive causeway at Angkor Wat, there are clear traces of city streets on a grid pattern. The large forest visible today around Angkopr Thom was once a living city.

Discuss:

There are no ordinary homes left from the Angkor Empire but many stone temples. Why?

EVIDENCE OF DAILY LIFE

There is not a large variety of sources available to historians to construct daily life in Angkor society. Historians use:

1. inscriptions - most were used to depict religous life, although there are a small number of examples of daily life of ordinary Khmer citizens.

2. inventories - a list of goods and population of local areas. These show that large landowners made donations to build temples. This proved that the King did not own all of the land.

3. Zhou Daguan - Zhou Daguan was a Chinese emissary who lived at Angkor for a year from 1296 to 1297. He provided excellent written evidence on life in Angkor society. This is because the Chinese had a strong commercial interest in understanding the customs of societies they traded with.

4. Bas-reliefs - pictures on the outer gallery walls at the Bayon show everyday life.