Death and Mortuary Rituals from Prehistory to Angkor's God-Kings

Charles F. H. Higham is the author of the publication Death and Mortuary Rituals in Mainland Southeast Asia: From Hunter-Gatherers to the God-Kings of Angkor. A remarkable work, unfortunately available only in English.

Neolithic male jar burial at the Ban Na Di site, upper Mun Valley. Photo by the author

In the excerpt below, the author perfectly summarizes the funerary rites during the Angkorian civilization. For those who wish to learn more about these rituals, the full publication can be consulted via angkordatabase.asia.

Bronze Age Cemeteries

In Southeast Asia, the continuity of funerary rites across the ages is remarkable. In this essay, the author, interpreting Bronze Age cemeteries alongside their Neolithic predecessors and Iron Age successors, emphasizes “the importance of the mortuary feast to ensure and maintain the social status of the deceased's kin.

This can be seen in the placement of lidded pottery vessels in graves containing fish bones, shellfish, chickens, eggs, pigs, cattle, and water buffalo. In this way, the dead served the living elite—a practice that may have been reinforced when the bones of particularly wealthy Bronze Age notables were exhumed, perhaps to participate in postmortem rituals, then carefully reburied.”

Mortuary Rites

The social role of mortuary rites reaches its peak with the Angkorian civilization. The historical process is described as follows: “With the opening of the southern maritime Silk Road, exotic goods and ideas reached Southeast Asia.

Established elites found in esoteric Hinduism an ideological path to elevated social status that progressively brought them closer to divine status. By the 7th century, just two centuries after the burial of the last Iron Age leaders at Noen U-Loke, a Khmer king was granted a title previously reserved for gods. With the founding of the Angkor kingdom in the early 9th century, inscriptions on the royal temple mausoleums bestowed divine titles on the sovereigns. Ancestors were also venerated.

The construction of increasingly massive mausoleums, such as those of Angkor Wat and the Bayon, mobilized armies of stonemasons, sculptors, architects, priests, goldsmiths, and laborers in a collective effort that allowed them to gain merit by contributing to the tomb of a god. Thus, it is possible to identify in the monuments of the Angkorian period the material evidence of the exploitation of the population by the ruling lineage.

One particular feature of this behavior is the emphasis on legitimacy through descent from divine ancestors. The Preah Ko temple at Hariharalaya, for example, has six shrines, each dedicated to the worship of King Indravarman’s male and female ancestors.”

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