| Abstract: |
For a century and a half, people have held that Angkor’s water-management networks were an important basis for its six centuries as a major power in Southeast Asia. Bernard-Philippe Groslier coined the term ‘cité hydraulique’ (hydraulic city) to refer to the large urban areas, whose populations relied on these networks, and hypothesised that their failures contributed to Angkor’s decline. This conjecture has been both criticised and supported widely. In this chapter, we apply simple hydraulics to the available archaeological evidence to argue that, while there is some evidence for irrigation, water is unlikely to have been discharged from the reservoirs. We suggest instead that these large reservoirs were to serve as monuments to the power and prestige of the rulers, particularly when it was important to establish their legitimacy after gaining the throne.
|
