Phnom Bok Revisited: Seeing the Obvious at Angkor

Christophe Pottier1*, CHEA Socheat2, Adam Wijker1, Giles Morrow3,4, and Laura Docquier5

Overlooking the Angkor plain, Phnom Bok is one of the three hills that structured the earliest capital of Yaśodharapura. Despite its prominence, the site has remained curiously understudied—something of a “nose in the middle of the face”: clearly visible within the Angkorian landscape yet rarely examined in detail. Phnom Bok was notably excluded from the first airborne LiDAR survey of Angkor in 2012. Newly acquired LiDAR data in 2024 now provide the first comprehensive coverage of the hill and its surrounding landscape, opening new perspectives on its spatial organisation and archaeological context. This paper revisits observations first presented by one of the authors at the 1994* conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists, which identified several landscape features around Phnom Bok, including axial arrangements, possible palatial elements, a moat, and traces of a rectilinear grid north of the hill. Three decades later, these interpretations—then based on field survey and limited cartographic data—require reconsideration in light of advances in Angkorian archaeology and landscape studies. By integrating new LiDAR data with field observations and current perspectives on Angkorian urbanism, this contribution reevaluates Phnom Bok’s role in the early territorial and urban organisation of Angkor. The results reveal extensive quarrying across the hill and its surroundings, indicating‑ that it served as the largest laterite source for the Angkorian capital. Far from a mere landmark, Phnom Bok not only structured the initial layout of Yaśodharapura but also likely supplied essential material for subsequent Angkorian capitals, fundamentally reshaping our understanding of this long overlooked‑ site.