Visualising Angkor: Part 1 - Envisaging a Living City
A selection of 3D Images, animations & 360 videos depicting daily life and cultural landscapes from Monash University's 'Visualising Angkor Project'
By SensiLab, Monash University
Visualising Angkor Project
Visualising Angkor
For more than 10 years, the Visualising Angkor Project has explored the visualisation of diverse 3D reconstructions of greater Angkor - from ecological visualisation of hamlets on the periphery to the animation of 13th Century eyewitness accounts of life at the capital. Since 2015, the project has focused on the completion of an immersive simulation of Angkor Wat in the 12th Century.
Visualising Angkor: A view over the western gates at a virtual Angkor Wat (2017) by Tom Chandler, Mike YeatesSensiLab, Monash University
The Visualising Angkor Project began as an exercise in evidence based 3D modelling and animation of the past.
These models constitute the essential pieces from which a virtual world is made. They are numerous and diverse, and include stone and ephemeral architecture, objects of art, ritual and everyday life, plants and animals, and the people of Angkor.
In the field of 'virtual heritage' and in this research, the term 'virtual' refers to computer-generated visualisations having three or more dimensions, regardless of the method used to produce them (e.g. modelling, photogrammetry, scanning, 3D printing, virtual/augmented reality, etc.).
Visualising Angkor: Agent Paths (2017) by Tom Chandler, Kingsley StephensSensiLab, Monash University
Only relatively recently have we begun exploring simulation as a tool for visualising the past.
Our realtime simulations play out within a comprehensive reconstruction of Angkor Wat in the 12th Century and focus on tracking thousands of animated people, termed 'agents', as they enter, exit and circulate around the complex over 24 hours.
This simulation can be thought of as a hypothetical machine that allows us to test how the Angkor Wat complex might have operated with 25,000 estimated inhabitants and attached workpeople.
Visualising Angkor: wireframe render of an oxcart convoy (2018) by Tom Chandler, Brent McKee and Chandara UngSensiLab, Monash University
The evidence-based 3D models of medieval Angkor depicted in the following scenes draw upon data from a wide array of sources, including archaeological and architectural surveys, historical accounts, photographic archives, botany and textile studies.
These 3D models make up a library that can collectively be patterned to visualise hypothetical reconstructions of the past.
These visualisations generate an iterative dialogue between 3D animators, archaeologists and historians to test how assumptions about Angkor can be made more precise.
Envisaging a Living City
The following images and animations depict scenes of daily life in the metropolis of Angkor. The locations are not stated and the date of the events is not specified, though it is assumed that all take place in the vicinity of greater Angkor during the peak of the Angkorian period between the 11th and 13th Centuries.
Visualising Angkor: A village on the periphery of Angkor (2017)SensiLab, Monash University
A flock of sarus cranes ('Antigone antigone') glide over a settlement on the periphery of Angkor in the wet season
Given the proximity of the Tonle Sap Lake, large numbers of water birds would have been a regular sight in the skies above Angkor during historical times.
A pair of Theravada monks walking past a Brahmanic (Hindu) shrine
The suggested scene dates roughly to the late 13th Century when Chinese emissary Zhou Daguan visted Angkor. In his eyewitness accounts, Zhou observed that there were three religious doctrines at Angkor:
'...learned men are called banjie. Those who are Buddhist monks are called zhugu. Followers of the Dao are called basiwei'.
Interpretation of Zhou's description suggests these doctrines were pandits, Theravada monks and followers of Shiva respectively.
(Translation by Harris 2007: 52)
Visualising Angkor: A captain riding an elephant leads his troops out on campaign (2017) by Tom Chandler, Brent McKee, Chandara UngSensiLab, Monash University
A captain riding on an elephant leads his troops out on campaign
Angkorian military strength was known to rest with local lords who had sworn an oath of allegiance to the King. In time of war, captains of militia were expected to conscript peasants in their district and lead them to Angkor to join the Khmer army.
The weaponry and decorative patterning of the insignia and parasols in this scene are based on studies of bas-reliefs at the Bayon and Banteay Chmar temples.
Visualising Angkor: An official on horseback talks to a village chief by Tom Chandler, Brent McKee, Chandara Ung and 2016SensiLab, Monash University
An official on horseback converses with a village chief
This visualisation is an interpretation of social hierarchy at Angkor. The elevated, parasol shaded official speaks while the village chief and his companion gesture respectfully in the full sun.
An animated scene of people coming and going along a road in the capital (2017) by Tom Chandler and Brent McKee (Monash University)SensiLab, Monash University
Daily life along the thoroughfares of Angkor
The location of this visualisation is somewhere in the urban core of the city, not far from the Royal Palace compound. The thick vegetation is not a wild forest but deliberately planted frontages of more substantial residences set back from the road.
An animation of a man in a canoe making his way along an Angkorian canal (1200/1400) by Tom Chandler and Brent McKee (Monash University)SensiLab, Monash University
Angkorian settlement along the canals
The extensive networks of canals were important infrastructure at Angkor. As well as moving vast quantities of water around the capital, canals were essential for travel and transportation.
Drawing on historical photography and archaeological research, this scene imagines a view of an Angkorian canal lined with houses raised on bamboo stilts.
Oxcarts making their way along a forest road (2017) by Tom Chandler and Brent McKee (Monash University)SensiLab, Monash University
An oxcart convoy loaded with goods makes its way only a forest road at Angkor
The audio in this scene features a field recording of a passing oxcart made in 2010.
Visualising Angkor: A view among the rice fields of the city (2017) by Tom Chandler, Brent McKeeSensiLab, Monash University
A view among the rice fields of Angkor
Rice was the staple food of Angkor. The vast system of canals was in part constructed to supply ricefields with water. Archaeologists can see ancient rice field patterns from the air and have found the remains of ancient rice in their excavations.
The tower of a village temple can be glimpsed in the background on the left.
360 View - Rice fields in the wet season and sounds of an approaching storm
360 View - A market at Angkor
The Chinese emmisary Zhou Daguan observed trade at Angkor in the 13th Century. He wrote:
'The local people who know how to trade are all women… there is a market every day from six in the morning until midday… Small market transactions are paid for with rice or… Chinese goods. The ones next up in size are paid for with cloth. Large transactions are done with gold and silver.'
(Translation by Harris 2007: 70)
360 View - In a small boat on an Angkorian canal
The extensive networks of canals were important infrastructure at Angkor. As well as moving vast quantities of water around the capital, canals were essential for travel and transportation.
Drawing on historical photography and archaeological research, this scene imagines a view of an Angkorian canal lined with houses raised on bamboo stilts.
This image of a ficus tree smothering a brick shrine was loosely based on the towers of Prasat Pram at Koh Ker. However, as with many of the prior scenes, it is more evocative than specific.
By the 15th Century the defining characteristics of classical Angkorian civilization – monumental stone architecture, the rich corpus of inscriptions in Old Khmer and Sanskrit, landscape-scale infrastructure, enormous low-density settlements, and an elaborate political economy - were no longer being replicated on an equivalent scale. The end of Angkorian period is associated with complex array factors including climactic variability, the pursuit of new trading opportunities, and over commitment to massive infrastructure.
This visualisation could be dated to the 16th Century when resources were no longer allocated to maintain the shrine. Over the next 400 years to the present day, the tower would be entirely crushed by the ficus tree. The structure would collapse and more trees would grow among the fragmented walls until everything disintegrated. Today, archaeologists might find brick foundations and decorative elements made of sandstone. There are hundreds of such sites throughout Cambodia.
Curators: Tom Chandler & Martin Polkinghorne
Project Research & Direction: Tom Chandler
3D Modelling, Animation, Game Programming: Brent McKee, Mike Yeates, Chandara Ung, Elliott Wilson
Visualising Angkor Project Advisors: Roland Fletcher, Martin Polkinghorne, Scott Hawken
Envisaging a Living City, is the first of two Visualising Angkor exhibits. The second, Part 2 - A New Reconstruction of Angkor Wat, draws from a simulation of the Angkor Wat enclosure developed by Monash University between 2015-2017.
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