How Did The Khmer Culture Affect The Culture Of Cambodia?

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In 802 CE, in what is now known as Cambodia, the Khmer empire begun.
The Khmer culture was a hierarchy with strong divides between the classes. The highest class of people was the king, who they believed was directly linked to the Gods. Wealthy people lived in fine houses with gold cups and tapestries, where everyday people lived in simple reed huts with dirt floors. Villagers would walk about with there chests bare, men and women alike. Most villagers worked in the rice fields.
The nature of slaves in Khmer culture is unknown, although some were prisoners of war. Women had social freedoms and position. They could inherit land and property and hold political posts such as being a judge. The king’s personal bodyguards were also women. It was …show more content…

Political and economic decisions, and action taken, were all based around the village temple.Power was based around status. The village temples owed allegiance to regional temples and ultimately to a greater and central temple linked to the king and royal court. People gained power and status by giving donations of land, food, gold and silver to higher-class people and temples, and that was returned in the form of social position, support and legal powers.Those at the driest end of the river of power could pay for extra flow from those above them in the pecking order.. A common form of this was that the local aristocracy would manage their land in the name of the temple, and the produce produced on that land would be collected by the temple and that economic power would be passed on to …show more content…

Angkor Wat was one of, if not the, most famous temple of all time. This temple was built in in the 12th century C.E., and was dedicated to the god Vishnu. The Hindu people believed in a triumvirate of gods, Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the preserver), and Shiva (the destroyer). Angkor Wat was originally called “Yasodharapura” which meant “glory-bearing city”.This brilliant monument was made of sandstone blocks that were quarried from the mountain of Phnom Kulen, more than 50km away and floated down the Siem Reap river on rafts.
The Khmer people developed a form of martial arts that was used by armies and the equivalent of the police called bokator, which means “pounding the lion”. It was formed and developed by ideas coming from nature, like imitating the movements of trees and animals, using elbow and knee strikes, shin kicks and weapons like short sticks and bamboo staffs. This martial art still survives to this day, under the name “Thai kickboxing”.

There are a lot of theories as to what caused the slow decline of power in the Khmer empire, ending in the extinction of the empire. One possible explanation, or contributing factor was the defeat of the Khmer people in battle against the neighbouring tribes.They lost rule their

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