Archaeological and palaeo-environmental investigations of

the Pre-Funan period in the Mekong delta of Southeast

Asia
Source: Deutsches Archeologisches Institut (http://www.dainst.org)

Location
The excavation site is located in the midst of Prohear village in
Prey Veng province about 65 km due east of Phnom Penh, the
capital of Cambodia, and 40 km west of the border with Vietnam.
About 65 km to the south is the Bronze Age salt making centre and
Early Iron Age burial site of Go O Chua, where the German
Archaeological Institute together with Vietnamese archaeologists
has been carrying out excavations from 2003 to 2006
History
In Spring 2007, one of the
richest prehistoric burial
sites of Southeast Asia was
found in Prohear village but
almost completely looted by
Iron age cemeteries with the villagers. In May 2007,
rich find complexes an Archaeology student
observed and reported this looting to the Ministry of Culture
and Fine Arts and to the archaeologists of the Memot Centre in
Phnom Penh. Cambodian archaeologists visited the site but
could not stop the looting. During the period up to the Gold jewellery from different
beginning of burials
2008, the villagers dug up the whole area of the burial site and
sold all

the archaeological artefacts to middlemen representing antique

dealers.
In less than a year, countless burials dating back 2000 years were systematically destroyed.
Hundreds of gold objects and about 32 bronze drums were immediately channelled into the illegal
antiquities
trade.
The emergency aid promptly offered by the DAI for a Cambodian-German excavation could not be
realized because permission for the excavation was only granted in November 2007. Only the main
road through the village was spared from looting because it is municipally owned and much
frequented. This 4 metres-wide path was the goal of the archaeological campaigns from February to
May 2008 and February/March 2009. Together with the Memot Centre, the Commission for
Archaeology of Non-European Cultures of the German Archaeological Institute discovered 52 burials
lying under the main route through the village.
Objectives
In Southeast Cambodia, the number of investigated late Bronze - Iron age burial sites from the last
millennium BC and the first millennium AD is still small and our insight into the cultural development of
this period remains fragmentary. At the sites of Vat Komnou/Angkor Borei (Takeo province) and
Village 10.8 (Kampong Cham province) about 100 burials of the 4th century BC to the 2nd century AD
with many offerings have been discovered. Further, about 50 burials excavated at Go O Chua in Long
An province in southern Vietnam provide additional information from the late phase of the Pre-Angkor
period (The prehistoric salt-making centre and burial site of Go O Chua in South Vietnam).
With its unusually rich offerings, the burial site of Prohear surpasses all expectations. The burial sites
of this region show clear cultural similarities (e.g. high pedestalled bowls of the same shape and
ornamentation), but also display strikingly distinctive local features. Thus, the wealth of gold offerings
is without comparison at any other burial site of the early Iron Age period in this region and the great
number of bronze drums from the site - although mostly undocumented - is hitherto unique for the
southern parts of mainland South East Asia, far away from the Dong Son cultural area.

Previous Activities
During two excavations in April/May 2008 and February/March 2009 extended over four units with a
total of 120 m² in total 52 burial complexes were saved.
A camera team of Deutsche Welle accompanied Prof. Leisen's temple rescuers on their adventurous
expeditions and observes Dr. Reinecke's gold diggers on one of their final "emergency digs" in
Prohear.
Further information can be obtained from the Website of Deutsche Welle.

Current Work
The discovered artefacts have to be restored (ill. 5),
documented features have to be analyzed in context with
similar richly-equipped burials in southern Vietnam; for
example, with the newly-published site of Giong Lon near
Vung Tau where the first golden eye masks in Vietnam have
been found.
Since 29th November 2010, the most precious artefacts from
the first and second excavation at Prohear and from another
Early Iron Age burial site at Village 10.8 (Kampong Cham
province) that was excavated also with German support are
displayed in the exhibition at the National Museum of German Ambassador visited
Cambodia in Phnom Penh. A second exhibition is planned at Prohear in May 2008
the provincial museum in Prey Veng for 2011.
The next excavation at Prohear will be taking place in
February/March 2011.

Memot-Centre Phnom Penh

Results

Bronze drum in situ

Many of the 52 discovered burials were left intact by the
looters in the upper layers, but below they had been undercut
and destroyed by 2,5 metre-long lateral tunnels dug about
0.8 m under the surface of the path. Two burial periods are
recognizable from the different offerings and depth of the
inhumations. In the earlier layer, with better conditions for
skeletal preservation, burials without gold offerings but with
jewellery made from stone beads, mostly garnet, were found.
One exceptional offering was found in a burial of this early
period: 20 green glass earrings, that had clearly been
threaded onto a string made from organic material, were
found on both sides of the skull. Besides, some bronze
bangles, iron tools or weapons and garnet beads were also
found in this inhumation.
Typical for the younger period are bronze drums and gold Bronze bracelet with a pair of
jewellery. Despite so many partly looted and destroyed "antlers".
inhumations, more than two-thirds of all burials still contained gold or silver ornaments, mostly finger
rings or earrings, although two bracelet from silver and gold were found too.
Three of the 52 excavated burials were equipped with bronze drums or parts of them. Male burials
could apparently be recognized by stone pestles placed between the thighs; female burials by
spindle whorls. According to information from the villagers, about 5 percent off all burials had a rich
complex of offerings. "Rich" in this context meant about 10 ceramic vessels of different shapes and
sizes, one bronze drum, 5-15 gold ornaments and some iron or bronze offerings, as well as glass
beads.
In both periods, the dead lay on their back with the head oriented to the south-southwest and with
their hands lying to the side of the body or on the chest. Burials of the younger period had hardly any
preserved bones, but their head orientation could be identified by means of the earrings and other
finds distribution in the grave. The four excavation units gave only a small random impression of the
cemetery as a whole. However, besides burials of women and men there were some inhumations of
children discovered too. At the bottom of a large ceramic jar, fragments of a pair of bronze bangles
were found lying directly on top of a pig mandible. This feature was found in the lowest layer and
allows us to assume an earlier interment period of jar burials for children.
By means of all the looting holes in the village, the dimensions of the cemetery are easy to estimate
at about 130 x 150 m; thus nearly 20,000 m². The excavation area is situated at the centre of the
burial site. Here, an average of one grave was found for every 2-3 square metres. This means that
we have to assume that at Prohear more than thousand burials may have been looted, although we
should take into account that burials in the peripheral areas of the cemetery were probably not as
concentrated as in the centre. Despite the heavy destruction of the site, from these small excavated
areas alone it is clear that this cemetery is one of the most exceptional find complexes of the Pre
Angkor period in this region. Most of the excavated burials at Prohear belong to the second phase of
inhumation and should probably be dated from the 2nd century BC to the 1st century AD.
Radiocarbon dates are in process of analysis.

Cooperation
Our Cambodian partners are archaeologists from the Memot
Centre, Phnom Penh: Vin Laychour and Seng Sonetra
(Memot-Centre).
Scientific cooperation efforts exist with:
Archaeozoological investigations: Prof. Dr. Norbert Benecke
(Natural Scientific Department of the Head Office of the
German Archaeological Institute)
Bioanthropological investigations: Simone E. Krais
(University of Freiburg, Faculty of Medicine, Department of
Anthropology)
Glass and precious stone analyses: Alison K. Carter Excavation team
(University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Radiocarbon dating: Dr. Bernd Kromer (Radiometry Research Group, Institute of Environmental
Physics, University of Heidelberg)
Strontium isotopic analyses used to detect primarily non-local individuals: Marina Vohberger
(Biozentrum der LMU München, Department Biologie I Bereich Anthropologie )

Metal analyses (gold and silver): Prof. Dr. Ernst Pernicka, Dr. Roland Schwab, Dipl.-Arch. Sandra
Schlosser (Curt-Engelhorn-Centre for Archaeometry, Mannheim)

Metal analyses (bronze): Thomas Oliver Pryce (Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the
History of Art, Oxford)

Contact
Dr. Andreas Reinecke
Südostasien
Telefon: +49-(0)228-997712-25
Telefax: +49-(0)228-997712-49
Email: reinecke@kaak.dainst.de

Further Contact Partners

Vin Laychour (Organisation)
Email: vlaychour@yahoo.com
Seng Sonetra (Restaurierung)
Email: sengsonetra@yahoo.com
Sponsors
Thanks of the support of the German Embassy in Phnom Penh and the Federal Foreign Office's
"Cultural Preservation Programme", the restoration of the finds from Prohear begun immediately.
Bibliography
Andreas Reinecke / Vin Laychour / Seng Sonetra 2008: Der Alptraum von Prohear. In: Archäologie
in Deutschland 6/2008, 12-17.

Andreas Reinecke / Vin Laychour / Seng Sonetra 2009: Discovered: The rich past of Prey Veng. In:
The Cambodian Scene No. 41, 40-41.

Andreas Reinecke / Vin Laychour 2010: The Early Iron Age cemetery at Prohear, Prey Veng
province in Southeast Cambodia: Excavations and results of new analyses: Bioarchaeology in
Southeast Asia and the Pacific: Newsletter Issue 6, 7-11.

Simone Krais/Seng Sonetra 2010: The skeletal remains from Prohear: Bioarchaeology in Southeast
Asia and the Pacific: Newsletter Issue 6, 11-13.

Andreas Reinecke / Vin Laychour / Seng Sonetra 2009: The First Golden Age of Cambodia:
Excavations at Prohear (Bonn 2009). [PDF, 17MB]