Dying Young: Malaria killed Mouhot in the Lao wilderness.
Henri Mouhot's forgotten crypt outside of Luang Prabang was rediscovered in 1990 (Photo: Don Entz)
Henri Mouhot's crypt in Laos (Photo: Don Entz)Nithinand Yorsaengrat
The Nation (Thailand)
Henri Mouhot became famous for discovering Cambodia's 'lost' Angkor, but he travelled widely. That's why his bones are in Laos
Henri Mouhot, the Frenchman whose 19th-century rediscovery of Cambodia's Angkor temple complex sparked a romantic "See Angkor and die" fad in the West, saw Angkor and died - in Laos.
His grave just outside Luang Prabang was all but forgotten until 1990 when tourists stumbled on it. Today any local tour guide can arrange a visit.
Alexandre Henri Mouhot's collection of delightful sketches, "Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China, Cambodia and Laos During the Years 1858, 1859 and 1860", was published in London following his death in 1861, and his description of Angkor's "exotic abandoned ruins" caused considerable excitement.
Missionaries and traders had been writing about the mediaeval Khmer temples since the 16th century, but Mouhot's evocation truly caught the public imagination.
The catchphrase "See Angkor and die" - presumably happily - that swept the West became the title of a romantic film that Norodom Sihanouk directed in 1993 while he was still Cambodia's king.
Born in 1826 in Montbeliard, France, Mouhot was gifted in languages and the natural sciences. His interests were almost certainly piqued by the 1850s books "The Kingdom and People of Siam" by Britain's Sir James Bowring and "Description of the Siam Kingdom" by French Bishop Jean-Baptiste Pallegoix.
Mouhot mounted an expedition to Southeast Asia with the support of London's Royal Geographical and Zoological societies, and arrived in Bangkok on April 27, 1858.
Over the next three years he made four excursions, two of them within Siam. The second took him into Cambodia to Angkor, the fourth to Luang Prabang in Laos.
He mapped the territory en route, although, as mentioned in his journals, his equipment broke before he finished his map of Siam. In part because of this, France and Britain concluded that Siam extended only as far as the Chao Phya River basin, which appeared to give it the perfect dimensions for "buffer state" between their own neighbouring colonies.
In 1861 Mouhot spent three months crossing dense jungle from Loei to Luang Prabang and planned to follow the Mekong River's current into Cambodia, but on October 19, outside Luang Prabang, he was suddenly struck by malarial fever. His last diary entry was dated October 29, and he died on November 10, age 35.
Mouhot's servants buried the explorer on a bank of Khan River at the spot where he died. All of his journals and specimens were sent to his family in England. It was his brother who published the diaries.
Commander Doudart de Lagree, leader of the French government's Mekong Exploration Commission of 1866-1868, ordered a modest monument erected on a slope with a sandstone panel that read "H Mouhot, May 1867" to commemorate the first Frenchman to visit this part of Laos.
The monument was destroyed when the Khan River flooded and was replaced in 1887 by a more durable structure.
Restoration work was done on the tomb in 1951 by the Ecole Francaise d'Extreme Orient, but after that the site was abandoned to the encroaching jungle.
Only in 1990 did tourists accidentally rediscover it, and the town of Mouhot's birth, Montbeliard, arranged for the grave's restoration.
History regards Henri Mouhot with mixed emotions. He was a scientist, a bold explorer and a cartographer who, in a sense, gave Angkor back to the world.
And yet those same maps he made paved the way for France's expanding colonial empire in Indochina, a foreign presence that remained in control until 1954.
Henri Mouhot, the Frenchman whose 19th-century rediscovery of Cambodia's Angkor temple complex sparked a romantic "See Angkor and die" fad in the West, saw Angkor and died - in Laos.
His grave just outside Luang Prabang was all but forgotten until 1990 when tourists stumbled on it. Today any local tour guide can arrange a visit.
Alexandre Henri Mouhot's collection of delightful sketches, "Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China, Cambodia and Laos During the Years 1858, 1859 and 1860", was published in London following his death in 1861, and his description of Angkor's "exotic abandoned ruins" caused considerable excitement.
Missionaries and traders had been writing about the mediaeval Khmer temples since the 16th century, but Mouhot's evocation truly caught the public imagination.
The catchphrase "See Angkor and die" - presumably happily - that swept the West became the title of a romantic film that Norodom Sihanouk directed in 1993 while he was still Cambodia's king.
Born in 1826 in Montbeliard, France, Mouhot was gifted in languages and the natural sciences. His interests were almost certainly piqued by the 1850s books "The Kingdom and People of Siam" by Britain's Sir James Bowring and "Description of the Siam Kingdom" by French Bishop Jean-Baptiste Pallegoix.
Mouhot mounted an expedition to Southeast Asia with the support of London's Royal Geographical and Zoological societies, and arrived in Bangkok on April 27, 1858.
Over the next three years he made four excursions, two of them within Siam. The second took him into Cambodia to Angkor, the fourth to Luang Prabang in Laos.
He mapped the territory en route, although, as mentioned in his journals, his equipment broke before he finished his map of Siam. In part because of this, France and Britain concluded that Siam extended only as far as the Chao Phya River basin, which appeared to give it the perfect dimensions for "buffer state" between their own neighbouring colonies.
In 1861 Mouhot spent three months crossing dense jungle from Loei to Luang Prabang and planned to follow the Mekong River's current into Cambodia, but on October 19, outside Luang Prabang, he was suddenly struck by malarial fever. His last diary entry was dated October 29, and he died on November 10, age 35.
Mouhot's servants buried the explorer on a bank of Khan River at the spot where he died. All of his journals and specimens were sent to his family in England. It was his brother who published the diaries.
Commander Doudart de Lagree, leader of the French government's Mekong Exploration Commission of 1866-1868, ordered a modest monument erected on a slope with a sandstone panel that read "H Mouhot, May 1867" to commemorate the first Frenchman to visit this part of Laos.
The monument was destroyed when the Khan River flooded and was replaced in 1887 by a more durable structure.
Restoration work was done on the tomb in 1951 by the Ecole Francaise d'Extreme Orient, but after that the site was abandoned to the encroaching jungle.
Only in 1990 did tourists accidentally rediscover it, and the town of Mouhot's birth, Montbeliard, arranged for the grave's restoration.
History regards Henri Mouhot with mixed emotions. He was a scientist, a bold explorer and a cartographer who, in a sense, gave Angkor back to the world.
And yet those same maps he made paved the way for France's expanding colonial empire in Indochina, a foreign presence that remained in control until 1954.
9 comments:
At least he could see Angkor.He was still lucky. Heard that Angkor at that time was so wonderful, had lots of carvings and statues still had heads, but now totally damaged.
i cry for Angkor...
What I like to know is who discovered Cambodian History?
please note that there is 3 men, and one of which is 1500 years old, and other 2 are 1000 years each - they are the history books. One day, not long, they will come to tell you. French guys did not speak the true history. People live at Angkor already when French guys arrived.
Bopea
Good point, mate (8:37)!
Any argument?
Cambodian history was recorded by the palace, temple (watt), on the stone and by the foreigne adveture and other nationt court! later the french compose for their records!
Yes you can say the french discover Cambodia for Europe but not for people of Cambodian!
i think his tomb should be relocated to cambodia as he was the first westerner to introduce the famous cambodia's angkor monuments to the western world. i think the reason he was buried in laos was because he died there, but his fame is in cambodia, actually! his name is synonamous with angkor's rediscovery.
Henri Mouhot is the first Westerner to discover Angkor, but of course, Khmer people already knows about Angkor and had live there. It was the Khmer people who led Henri Mouhot to Angkor.
of course, 2:43am, he was credited for being the first to introduce angkor to the west; emphasized the phrase " the first westerner to introduce angkor to the western world." because before him, angkor was not heard of or known in the west, very scanty if any before. so mr. henri mouhot(a french nationale) changed all of that!
yes, i have no doubt that khmer people were aware of angkor already, but nobody did anything to actually introduce it to the western world, we're talking here!
Maybe, but the article is not as explicit as you've put it, 3:21. I don't think most readers will come to the same conclusion as you did.
For instance, look at the title, "Of the lost and rediscovered". The word "lost" in general mean you don't know where it is... .
I think this is a clear attempt by gorilla to put Khmer people down as usual.
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