Forgetting the Champa

My Son was the religious center of the Champa kingdom in Vietnam. The
temples there are located in the hills, now remote, south of Danang
and Hoi An.

The Champa were Hindu, and the architecture is adorned with statues of
Shiva and Ganesh, as well as the occasional prominent linga. The
temples themselves are windowless,
and built with fitted bricks (no mortar used).

When the site was rediscovered by the French (one assumes the locals
knew all about it), they set about to restore the temples. The only
problem was that the technology for fitting the bricks together had
been lost.

It's amazing to me that something like happens. Is it so much better
to use mortar that everyone who fitted bricks together simply stopped?
One can almost imagine the mortar manufacturers as a sort of mafia-
your building didn't receive their 'protection' if you didn't use
mortar. Maybe it was just much easier and cheaper to use mortar, but
you'd think the luxury market would stick around.

Additionally, the older bricks maintain their red color, while the
newer ones are blackened by humidity and mold and weather. The guide
at the site said it was because of the protective coating applied to
the original bricks by the Champa- a layer of pine sap and other goop.
I have a hard time believing that this protective coat is still there
on the bricks.

Regardless of the cause of technological devolution and mechanisms of
color protection, you can tell the difference between the original and
restored portions of the ruins by whether the bricks use mortar and
whether they look old or new- the better looking sections are the old
ones.

The Vietcong used the site as a weapons cache and communications
center during the US occupation. I don't know if it was because of the
remoteness of the temples, or their setting in the hills, or because
they thought the temples were inviolate by the US military. Nixon
ordered the temples carpet bombed to flush out the VC. Apocryphally,
when the B52s couldn't finish the job, he sent in helicopters with
rockets. Given the depth of the craters and their proximity to the
structures, it's a surprise anything survived.

Now My Son is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and some people compare it
to Angkor or Borobudur. As an ancient seat of religion the comparison
holds, but in scale and breathtaking vistas probably not so much- I'll
let you know when I see Angkor in a few weeks.