Bernard Philippe Groslier

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Bernard Philippe Groslier (born May 10, 1926 in Phnom Penh , † May 29, 1986 in Paris ) was a French art historian and archaeologist specializing in the art of Cambodia , Thailand and other countries in Southeast Asia and a former curator of the Angkor Wat temples .

Life

He was the son of George Groslier , one of the French pioneers in the study of Angkor Wat and a curator at the National Museum in Phnom Penh. Bernard Groslier went to France for training and studied in Clermont-Ferrand in 1943/44 , taking part in Celtic-Roman excavations at the University of Strasbourg (which had exiled in Clermont-Ferrand) in Gergovia in the summer of 1942/43 . At the same time he joined the Resistance and then the French army, with which he was in French Indochina , where he was wounded in 1946. He was in the military until 1948 and received the Croix de guerre with a bronze star. He then studied history at the Sorbonne with a degree in 1950 and Cambodian at the École des Langues Orientales. He also studied at the École de Louvres, the Paris Institute of Ethnology and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (dissertation 1958). In 1950 he went to Saigon for the CNRS and the École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO) . 1952 to 1954 he was Secretary General of the EFEO. He worked at the Musée Blanchard de la Brosse and edited the Bulletin de la Société des Études Indochinoises (BSEI). In 1952/53 he undertook the first excavations in Angkor Wat and in 1958 again there and in the Roluos group , where he discovered a sewage system. He was also involved in the research in preparation for the restoration of the Phimai Historical Park (and advised the Thai government on the restoration from 1963 to 1966), and in 1959 he reconstructed Chandi Sungei Batu Pahat in the north of Perak in Malaysia . In late 1959 he became director of archeology at EFEO and curator of Angkor Wat. He developed new techniques of anastilosis for use not only in Angkor Wat, but at numerous other temples in Cambodia.

Groslier not only traveled extensively in Southeast Asia, India and the Pacific region, but also excavated in Greece and the Mediterranean region ( Apollonia (Kyrenaica) , Argos ).

Groslier was so busy with the exploration and reconstruction of the temple complexes that he had little time for the complete publication of the results of the excavations in Angkor Wat, even though he published a lot about the art of Indochina and especially the Khmer , especially their irrigation technology interested in the cultivation of the landscape.

In the mid-1970s he had to leave Cambodia due to the worsening political situation and was very concerned about the fate of his many Cambodian employees under the terrorist regime and the mass murders of the Khmer Rouge . In addition, he was badly wounded in 1973 while trying to stop a burglar in his home. He received several stab wounds, one in the liver, and his driver was killed. After his recovery he went back to Paris.

In the 1970s he advised the governments of Burma and Malaysia, among other things on the reconstruction of Bagan after an earthquake, aerial photographs of temple areas and the preservation of the old town of Malacca . At the same time he was head of archeology for the CNRS and organized its new research center at the University of Sophia Antipolis in Valbonne .

In 1967 he received the ex-US first wife Jackie Kennedy in Angkor Wat and explained the architecture of the temple to her.

Fonts

  • Angkor, Homme et Pierres, Paris: Arthaud 1956
    • German edition: Angkor - A sunken culture in the Indochinese jungle. DuMont, Schaumburg and Cologne 1956.
    • Revised English edition Angkor: Art and Civilization , New York: Praeger, London: Thames and Hudson 1966
  • Indochine, Carrefour des Arts, Paris: Albin Michel 1961
    • German edition: Back India, Art of the World , Holle Verlag 1964
    • English edition: The Art of Indochina, New York, Crown 1962
  • Indochine, Archaeologia Mundi, Geneva, Paris, Munich: Nagel 1966
  • Pour une Geographie historique du Cambodg, Les Cahiers d'Outre Mer, Volume 104, Bordeaux 1973, pp. 337-379
  • Agriculture et Religion dans l'Empire angkorie, Etuds Rurales, Vol. 53-56, 1974, pp. 95-118
  • La Cite Hydraulique angkorienne, exploitation ou surexploitation du Sol. Bulletin EFO, Vol. 66, 1979, pp. 161-202
  • with CR Boxer: Angkor et Ie Cambodge au XVIe siecle d'apres les sources portugaises et espagnoles, Annales du Musée Guimet, Volume 63, 1958 (derived from his dissertation at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes, 5th section)
  • with Jacques Dumarcay: Les inscriptions du Bayon, in Le Bayon, Mémoires archéologiques de l´EFEO 1973

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 1967 Jacqueline Kennedy visits Cambodia and Angkor Wat Angkorwat.de, accessed on February 4, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Groslier, Bernard Philippe
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French art historian and archaeologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 10, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Phnom Penh
DATE OF DEATH May 29, 1986
Place of death Paris