The Angkor Vihara Project – Five Years On

Andrew Harris1*, Shimoda Mariko2, CHHAY Rachna3, and CHHUN Sambor3

This talk will summarise the last half-decade of fieldwork and findings by the Angkor Vihara Project, a collaboration between APSARA National Authority and the University of Toronto, which has undertaken systematic survey and excavation of Angkor Thom’s Theravada “Buddhist Terraces” (preah vihear), congregational monastic halls that emerged in the 13th century CE. These sites, previously overlooked in narratives of Angkor’s decline, replaced earlier Hindu-Mahayana temples as local centres of religious, social, and political during the late Angkorian Empire. Excavations across seven of these sites in 2019 and 2022-2025 reveal sustained patterns of habitation, ritual activity, and local resource management amid climatic instability and political decentralisation. The terraces functioned not only as religious structures but as socio-political nodes embedded within Angkor Thom’s urban fabric, highlighting adaptive monastic urbanism in the empire’s later centuries. Notably, the talk concludes with a focused discussion of Buddhist Terrace site ATV009 on Angkor Thom’s East Gate Road, where complex, multi- phase occupation has demonstrated how late-period Theravada communities navigated spiritual, social, and ecological change, thereby offering a view of Angkor’s later history as one of transformation rather than linear decline.