Cambodian Literature - Ancient Stone Inscriptions

Ancient Stone Inscriptions

Khmer language
Khmer language
  • Khmer phonology
  • Khmer grammar
  • Khmer alphabet
  • Khmer numerals
  • Khmer literature
Dialects
  • Northern Khmer
  • Western Khmer

A testimony of the antiquity of the Khmer language are the multitude of epigraphic inscriptions on stone. The first written proof that has allowed the history of the Khmer empire to be reconstructed are those inscriptions.

These writings on columns, stelae and walls throw light on the royal lineages, religious edicts, territorial conquests and internal organization of the kingdom.

Read more about this topic:  Cambodian Literature

Famous quotes containing the words ancient, stone and/or inscriptions:

    You are our surety to immortal life,
    God’s hatred of the universal stain—
    The heritage, O Fear, of ancient strife
    Compounded with the tissue of the vein.
    Allen Tate (1899–1979)

    Two wooden tubs of blue hydrangeas stand at the foot of the stone steps.
    The sky is a blue gum streaked with rose. The trees are black.
    The grackles crack their throats of bone in the smooth air.
    Moisture and heat have swollen the garden into a slum of bloom.
    Pardie! Summer is like a fat beast, sleepy in mildew....
    Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)

    “Our earth is degenerate in these latter days. Bribery and corruption are common. Children no longer obey their parents. . . . The end of the world is evidently approaching.” Sound familiar? It is, in fact, the lament of a scribe in one of the earliest inscriptions to be unearthed in Mesopotamia, where Western civilization was born.
    C. John Sommerville (20th century)