History on the Rocks

by Peter Ford and Phan Soumy | August 20, 2016

Phnom Kravanh district, Pursat province –

Take a motorbike 20 minutes north of Veal Veng village, through dense forest and on muddy paths that suck in passing tires, and you come upon a rocky outcrop covered in mysterious ancient paintings.

In the drawings on the roof of the cave, humans ride on the back of elephants among dozens of mostly horned creatures of various shapes and sizes.


Veal Veng village chief Khvek Dim sits under cave paintings in Pursat province’s Phnom Kravanh district last month. (Peter Ford/The Cambodia Daily)

As far as anyone knows, the site with 137 red-painted figures is the only one of its kind in the Cardamoms, an isolated mountain range in southwest Cambodia that harbors other relics of an ancient past—burial jars, bones and stupas.

Archaeologists first visited the paintings in 2011, and a team of experts from Cambodia’s Ministry of Culture and the Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore spent two days at the remote site in Pursat province last year, seeking to determine the age of the art, which villagers revere and visit during Pchum Ben, a holy ceremony that commemorates one’s ancestors.

“The area has been a sacred place for a long time,” 67-year-old villager Chan Choeun said. “During Pchum Ben, many people who can’t travel to a pagoda will go to leave offerings at the rocks.”

The paintings, however, are under siege, threatened by misuse, time and the elements.

No one in Veal Veng knows the provenance of the paintings, said Khvek Dim, the 68-year-old chief of the nearby village of about 30 families, who live in a strip of simple wooden houses.


Cave paintings depict deer. (Peter Ford/The Cambodia Daily)

“They used to be very clear to see,” Mr. Dim said. “But sometime in the last 20 years, children minding cows lit fires to keep warm, and the smoke covered some of the paintings.”

The children also have sketched over the paintings. On the lower and easier to reach sections of the sloped ceiling, lines of white chalk crudely outline the images of the animals.

An academic paper published in May by the team of experts and academics cited a series of threats: spalling, insect nests and trails, plant growth, lichens, moss, salt, wind and water erosion, fading, vandalism and the chalk outlines.

“Due to its rarity, it is very important for regional and global cultural heritage. The preservation condition is fair, but the paintings are not protected,” the report says.

Experts remain unsure of the age of the paintings, but say it is unlikely that they predate the Bronze and Iron Ages, or even the pre-Angkorian Funan Period of the 1st through 5th centuries. And they could be much younger.

“The paintings are probably no older than 2,000-2,500 years,” the paper says. “The lack of anything definitive of the Funan, Chenla, Angkorian, post-Angkorian, Colonial or Modern periods as well as the absence of any Buddhist or Brahmanistic indicators, however, could suggest something earlier than Angkor.”


Paintings of people riding elephants. (Peter Ford/The Cambodia Daily)

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I want to visit there someday. btw i wonder how could they count them?

prahkeitouj wrote:I want to visit there someday. btw i wonder how could they count them?

what do you mean? there is too many wall paintings that it is impossible to count the numbers of wall paintings?

prahkeitouj wrote:I want to visit there someday. btw i wonder how could they count them?

Do you mean, how do they count what age the paintings are ?

I meant how did they count the painting on the wall? Yes a bit stupid question but it looks not easy to count them.

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prahkeitouj wrote:I meant how did they count the painting on the wall? Yes a bit stupid question but it looks not easy to count them.

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Not so stupid really, ,, The artist [ s ] could have meant it to be just one big painting. But it is more newsworthy if they report it as 137 paintings, rather than one big mural .