Group Writing: The World’s Largest 3D Jigsaw Puzzle

 

Right in the center of Yaśodharapura (Angkor), the second capital of the Khmer empire, stood Baphuon temple. Dedicated to Lord Shiva and consecrated in 1060 with an installation of a shivalinga in the central tower, Baphuon was the state temple of King Udayadityavarman II (1050-1066). Measuring at 130-meter long by 104-meter wide at its base, Baphuon was the largest temple in the empire at the time of its completion, making it the largest temple on mainland Southeast Asia, until one of the king’s successors out-built him a century later.

Baphuon was a favorite of Zhou Daguan, the Chinese emissary to the Khmer court in 1296-1297. Zhou described it as “the tower of Bronze, higher than the Golden Tower (the Bayon), a truly astonishing spectacle, with more than ten chambers at its base.” Built in the Khmer temple-mountain style, five tiered pyramid in sandstone, Baphuon’s central pyramid soared at 50-meter high. Built on an unsteady foundation of sandy soil and coupled with the temple’s massive weight, Baphuon became unstable for most of its history. Throughout the Angkor era, regular maintenance had been done to prevent the temple from collapsing in. After a period of political and civil unrest combined with attacks from recent migrations from Southern China, the empire came to a close in 1432, which also gave rise to Theravada Buddhism in the country. The Buddhists, led by monks, damaged some Hindu temples including Baphuon. Near the end of the 15th century, they tore down the central tower and some sections of the temple. The stones were used to build a 9-meter high by 70-meter long reclining Buddha on the second level of the west side. The weight of the Buddha exaggerated the problems that the temple had been facing from the start. The Buddha sculpture was never finished and the temple was abandoned.

When the French arrived in the mid-19th century, Baphuon was just a collection of crumbling structures covered with vegetation. From 1908 to 1914, massive work was done to clear the area. Aside from small repairs from 1916-1918, no major works were undertaken to restore the temple. Bernard-Philippe Groslier, Angkor’s conservator and a team from the École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO), decided to restore it using anastylosis in 1960. Three years later, about 300 workers dismantled some 300,000 stones, numbered according to position and laid them out over 10 hectares of the surrounding jungle. By 1970, when the war escalated, half of the temple’s first tier had been restored, the second was partially reinforced, and nothing had been done to the third tier. Fearing a hasty departure, Groslier made the workers build a laterite envelope to protect the top of the temple and a portion of the second tier. Two years later, the restoration team left Angkor. After the country fell to the Khmer Rouge, the Phnom Penh office of EFEO was ransacked and all records, including those on the Baphuon project, were destroyed.

second restoration project was launched in 1995, headed by an EFEO architect Pascal Royère. With a blueprint, a numbering system, and all documents pertaining to the first restoration destroyed, Royère was facing what archaeologists referred to as the world’s largest jigsaw puzzle. On top of that, a portion of the temple’s second and third tiers on the west side had collapsed in the years after the first project was abandoned. The process was made up of two steps. First, to stabilize the foundation, three big concrete rectangular boxes were poured on top of each other in pyramid style. Then, the stones were put back in place to hide the concrete-box structure. To lighten the weight of the pyramid, only the stones of the Buddha’s outer shell were installed. For the backing, sandstone was replaced by laterite. Workers built a slab held by stakes reaching into the ground to support the sculpture. A new drainage system was added to reduce rainwater damage. Once the structure was reinforced, the last task was to put those 300,000 stone blocks back where they belonged. Royère spent the first two years trying to figure out how the “field of stones” had been organized and the best way to deal with them, included using a computer program. Ultimately, 250 workers divided up the puzzle and tried to fit the pieces together the old-fashioned way. “This is an architectural tradition in which there is not a square centimeter of stone without decoration. One stone misplaced and the whole sculpted surface of the temple would be impossible to restore” said Royère. There is no mortar that fills the cracks, which means that each stone has its own place. You will not find two blocks that have the same dimensions. So workers carefully weighed and measured each stone block and relied on archive photos stored in the EFEO’s Paris office, drawings, and the memories of another EFEO architect Jacques Dumarçay and some 30 workers from the first project.

In April 2011, after 51 years, the renovation and restoration of Baphuon temple was concluded, with more than 10,000 stone blocks left over to litter the jungle floor. The renovated temple was formally reopened to the public with an inauguration ceremony on July 3 of that same year.

Credit: Christophe Loviny

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  1. Douglas Pratt Coolidge
    Douglas Pratt
    @DouglasPratt

    Great story! It puts our American situation in perspective. We aren’t even 300 years old yet.

    • #1
  2. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    In 1995, Mr. Royère and his team discovered on arrival on site about 300 00 stones spread over 10 hectares of forest, weighing between 500 kg and 1 ton 

    That is quite a puzzle indeed.

    • #2
  3. WI Con Member
    WI Con
    @WICon

    I’d never heard of this story LC. Well done and fascinating as always! Going to look for photos on net tonight.

    • #3
  4. Nanda "Chaps" Panjandrum Member
    Nanda "Chaps" Panjandrum
    @

    Wow, just wow, LC!  Such devotion, inventiveness, and initiative…Marvelous! 

    • #4
  5. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    Puts even the largest (3,000+ piece) jigsaw puzzles into perspective. No more complaining about losing the box top picture for a 1,000 piece puzzle!


    This conversation is part of our Group Writing Series under January’s theme: Renovation. We have had a great set of posts, with several new voices contributing this month.

    The February 2019 Theme Writing: How Do You Make That? is up. Thanks for the great suggestions. I’ll likely use some of the others in March and April. Do sign up for a day in February and tell us how you make something.

    • #5
  6. Rōnin Coolidge
    Rōnin
    @Ronin

    Why is it that we in the west are the only ones who seem to care about other people’s cultures?  I think it’s because we in the west figured out the importance of the study of history, to figure out what went right, and more importantly, what went wrong.  If I could, I’d like to recommend Arnold J. Toynbee and D.C. Somervel abridged; “A Study of History.”  And if you are feeling really randy, you can tackle Toynbee unabridged 12 volume set with atlas (https://www.amazon.com/study-history-COMPLETE-atlas-Reconsiderations/dp/B001CYFT1S/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1548987287&sr=1-1&keywords=a+study+of+history+toynbee+12+volumes)

    Both are good reads into why civilization fail.  Toynbee was born in 1889 and remembers setting on his fathers shoulders to watch Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee procession.  He died in 1975 so he had lived a lot of the history that defines us today.  Sorry, the Stella is making me feel introspective tonight.

    • #6
  7. WI Con Member
    WI Con
    @WICon

    LC, I was just checking out images of the Bapuon Temple – what an undertaking! Can’t believe I just found out about that. Seems right up there with the discovery of Troy, the Rosetta Stone or other famous archeological finds. 

    • #7
  8. Stubbs Member
    Stubbs
    @Stubbs

    I remember seeing this in 2005 and it still looked like a field of stones.  I’d love to go see it again to see the difference.  What a nightmare of a puzzle.  The temples of Angkor are among the most awe inspiring man-made structures I’ve ever seen.

    • #8
  9. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Rōnin (View Comment):
    Why is it that we in the west are the only ones who seem to care about other people’s cultures?

    We in the west  would want to do some research to determine whether we’re actually the only ones who care about other people’s cultures, or whether it just seems that way to those of us in the west. 

    • #9
  10. Hank Rhody, Meddling Cowpoke Contributor
    Hank Rhody, Meddling Cowpoke
    @HankRhody

    LC: with more than 10,000 stone blocks left over to litter the jungle floor.

    I trust these were the inside bits that were replaced? Or is this ‘concluded’ in the ‘Screw it, someone else can finish the job’ sense?

    • #10
  11. LC Member
    LC
    @LidensCheng

    Hank Rhody, Meddling Cowpoke (View Comment):

    LC: with more than 10,000 stone blocks left over to litter the jungle floor.

    I trust these were the inside bits that were replaced? Or is this ‘concluded’ in the ‘Screw it, someone else can finish the job’ sense?

    Haha both.

    • #11
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