| Abstract: |
This entry reviews the history of archaeological (and, by extension, art historical) research in what was first part of French Indochina, and is now the Kingdom of Cambodia. It reviews the impact of 19th-century expeditions on European knowledge of Cambodia's archaeological past, and traces two parallel strands of research during that time: one that focused on prehistory (and emphasized geology), and one that focused on reconstructing a fallen classical civilization, akin to the ruins found in the Mediterranean. The entry concludes by discussing some developments in Cambodia's archaeological world after the end of the civil war.
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