A temple saved from the waters : the restoration of the Western Mebon in Angkor

The film "Angkor, un temple sauvé des eaux, la restauration du Mebon occidental" [Angkor, a temple saved from the waters, the restoration of the Western Mebon] relates the major stages of the restoration work carried out by the EFEO and the Cambodian authority APSARA (Authority for the Protection of the Site and the Development of the Region) from 2013 to May 2018. The restorations and excavations associated with this site have provided a better understanding of the special place occupied by the Western Mebon, a temple dating from the 11th century, during the Angkorian period.A unique work in the history of the Angkor temples, the Mebon is an ambitious project, a symbiosis of architecture and engineering, stone and water, a religious development that makes these hydraulic structures sacred. Testimony to its complex and still partly enigmatic history, the large bronze statue of a Vishnu was discovered there. It was a monumental representation of the myth of the creation of the world, resting on a snake in the middle of the primordial ocean.