A section of the Bayon temple renovation has been extensively restored
The restoration and reinforcement of the southwest corner structure of the third terrace of the Bayon temple took six months to complete, and architects stated that the work was done entirely by hand without the use of equipment.
Some of the blocks have been replaced with new ones cut from the mountains and made of the same sort of sandstone. They are newer than the earlier ones.
However, architects have replaced fewer than 20% of the original stones.
Meng Sovanlylin, an architect from the Angkor Park and Archeological Prevention’s Department of Conservation of Monuments, stated that throughout the repair phase, the team concentrated on reinforcing the terrace wall and improving the soil quality of the base.
Sovanlylin told Khmer Times yesterday that her work on the third terrace of Bayon temple encountered many problems since they couldn’t put up machinery like cranes to move the stone, so architects had to use their own efforts to finish the job.
"Tree roots are one of the primary reasons that harm the temple because they grow into the tiny spaces of the stone joints, causing the structural skeleton to shift out of place. "From the beginning of 2021 until the present, my crew has rebuilt two distinct temples — here and the Takav Gate of Angkor Thom."
Apsara Authority vice-president Kim SoTin, in charge of the Department of Conservation of Monuments, stated that because of the Covid-19 epidemic, repair work on the temples is taking a long time to finish since international archaeologists are unable to go to Cambodia.
