| Abstract: |
For more than thirty years the chronology of Khmer stoneware has been based on the pioneering work of B.P. Groslier, who published the first synthesis on its evolution in 1981. His chronology was widely based on his excavations at different sites, especially the royal palace of Angkor and the burial site of Srah Srang, but his dating was based on Chinese ceramics, and above all on the chronology of the monuments, based mainly on epigraphy and to a lesser extent on the history of art. The discovery of several potters’ workshops around Angkor and other regions, as well as developments in stratigraphic excavation, allow us today to be more precise concerning some dates, and to revise some hypotheses concerning the start of the decline of Khmer stoneware. If the beginning of Khmer stoneware seems to be confirmed during the ninth century AD, it appears that, in opposition to previous hypotheses, production did not decline after the twelfth century, but that there was a revival during the thirteenth century. The study of consumption sites shows that the end of local potters’ workshops in the Angkor region does not signify the decline of ceramic production, but the development of new production centers which supplied Angkor until the beginning of the fifteenth century.
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