Data Set Four

The capture and sack of Angkor by the Siamese in 1430-1431, does not seem, in itself, to have been sufficient disaster to cause the end of the great Khmer civilization, as has often been stated. The Khmer Empire had met greater disasters in the past and had used them as stepping-stones to greater accomplishments.

The Malays had conquered their country in the eight century and held it in subjugation for a period of a few years. Yet Jayavarman II [Khmer king] won his independence from his suzerains and laid the foundation of the great Khmer Empire, not without resistance we may be sure.

The Chams had sacked their capital, killed their king, and conquered the country in the latter part of the twelfth century. Yet Jayavarman VII, after a struggle of four years, drove them out, mounted the throne, and in less than two decades had sacked their capital.

There is no evidence that the Siamese ever captured Angkor before 1431. And by that time Kmer civilization was already tottering. No great monument had been built since the close of the Bayon period, two centuries earlier. No Sanskrit inscription had been carved for a century. . .

Briggs, Lawrence Palmer (1951). �The Ancient Khmer Empire?Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Ser., Vol. 41, No. 1, p257-261

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