Angkor Borei () is a district located in Takéo Province, in southern Cambodia. According to the 1998 census of Cambodia, it had a population of 44,980.
Administration The district has 6 communes and 34 villages as of 2019.
No.CodeCommuneKhmerNumber of Villages1210101Angkor Borei Communeឃុំអង្គរបូរី62210102Ba Srae Communeឃុំបាស្រែ83210103Kouk Thlok Communeឃុំគោកធ្លក44210104Ponley Communeឃុំពន្លៃ65210105Prek Phtoul Commune (Preaek Phtoul)ឃុំព្រែកផ្ទោល46210106Prey Phkoam Communeឃុំព្រៃផ្គាំ6Total34
History
This city was a settlement of the Kingdom of Funan and may have been its capital. It may have been the Thinae, or Sinae Metropolis located by Claudius Ptolemy as the furthest known city to the east in his Geography.John Caverhill, “Some Attempts to ascertain the utmost Extent of the Knowledge of the Ancients in the East Indies”, Philosophical Transactions, vol.57, 1767, pp. 155-174. Rinith Taing, ‘The mysterious ‘foreigners’ carved into the temples of Sambor Prei Kuk’, Phnom Penh Post, 9 June 2017. The site was first excavated in 1996 and was again excavated in 1999 as part of the Lower Mekong Archaeological Project.Miriam T. Stark, et al., “Results of the 1995–1996 Archaeological Field Investigations at Angkor Borei, Cambodia” , Asian Perspectives, vol.38, no.1, 1999, at University of Hawai’i, pp.7-36. During the 1996 excavation, the University of Hawaii and the Royal University of Fine Arts initiated the excavation and focused on the sociopolitical complexity from 500 BC to 500 AD. This first excavation was preliminary research. The first objectives were:
1) Documentation of the site's layout and the range of its archaeological features
2) Evaluation of the integrity of subsurface materials and description of the site's stratigraphy
3) Collection of samples for dating portions of the archaeological site
4) Reconstructing the hydrology and natural environment of the early historic period in this region
In this site archaeological methods were used such as surface survey and mapping, test excavations, auger sampling and coring, and trenching with a backhoe.
The archeological project was disturbed by looting and illicit trafficking of Khmer antiquities, which continues to be a problem into the 21st century.Miriam T. Stark and P. Brion Griffin, “Archaeological Research and Cultural Heritage Management in Cambodia's Mekong Delta: The Search for the ‘Cradle of Khmer Civilization,’” in Marketing Heritage: Archaeology and the Consumption of the Past, ed. by Yorke Rowan and Uzi Baram, Walnut Creek, California: Altamira Press, 2004, 117–141.
References