Using Inscription Data to Investigate Power in Angkor’s Empire

Abstract

An analysis of aggregated spatial and temporal data from pre-Angkorian and Angkorian period inscriptions allows us to appreciate the use of power in the Angkorian Empire. This paper argues that the Khmer empire depended to a significant degree on administration operating through regional centres and on its longestablished communication and trade links. The mode of control varied with distance from the capital and over time. The empire’s political economy is marked by three concurrent cycles indicative of changing power relationships : cycles of royal inscriptions, of non-royal inscriptions, and of control over peripheral territories. Angkor’s processes and strategies were sufficiently flexible for it to endure for approximately six centuries. At some stage from the fourteenth century, key processes and strategies for maintaining its integrity as an empire became less effective than before, and the cyclical pattern ended.