Frederik Dawson

Netherlands - 15-Aug-24 -

Two years after pre-Angkorian and Dvaravati arts tour with ICOMOS international experts in Cambodia and Thailand, I had received an invitation to join the second episode of this academic gathering but this time focusing on pre-Angkorian and Cham arts in Vietnam which I immediately decided to participate even though I already visited most of the Champa Sites but visiting Oc Eo of Funan was really tempting. The group of scholars and enthusiasts firstly met at Saigon and visited Ho Chi Minh City Museum of History to study many statues of Funan and Champa. Most of the statues are Vishnu and Buddha, interesting but the quality of Funan art displaying in Phnom Penh National Museum I saw two years ago are much better. Then we made a journey to Mekong delta region southwest of Ho Chi Minh City to the city of Long Xuyen with a brief stop to see Funan ruins in a small village of Go Thap.

On the next day we continued our travel to Oc Eo which is a medium size village not far from Long Xuyen. The whole landscape of this area is flatland of rice fields and orchards with sophisticated irrigation system of countless canals that prevent Mekong flooding. When we saw a group of lonely mountains, Ba The Mountain, in the middle of the sea of paddy field, we immediately knew that we finally arrived Oc Eo. We first went to the new Oc Eo Cultural Research Center and welcomed by the museum director and his team. The center displayed fine Funan artifacts, and we learned that ancient Funan people lived in the stilt house with beautiful roof decoration. Archaeologists discovered many golds and coins from many ancient kingdoms and empires supporting the theory that Oc Eo was the center of maritime activities of Funan. They also discovered Funan funerary objects and strong evidence of Hinduism and Buddhism practices. Then the museum staff took us to see the excavation sites around the village next to Ba The Mountain. Go Sau Thuan Site was our first stop, at this place we saw ruins of ancient gateway like gopuram, corridors and road. Our experts summarized that this area must be an entrance part of large Hindu temple. The site is in the backyard of a carpenter house which sadly need to be destroyed in the near future so that government can build protective shelter to cover the whole site. On the foot of the mountain directly from Go Sau Thuan Site is the Linh Son Pagoda Temple. Here we learned that this temple is on the top of ancient Hindu Site and the authorities do not want to pull down this temple as it may cause an uproar to the locals. Inside the temple hall, there is a very interesting ancient Funan statue of Vishnu that locals transformed to be four hands Buddha. Since present day Oc Eo residence are mostly Cantonese descendent, the temple is a Chinese styled Buddhism. Beside the temple is another excavation plot, Linh Son Nam Site, which is also a part of ancient Hindu temple, but here historians found evidence of both Funan and Chenla period, evidence that even the political center moved to Sambor Prei Kuk, Oc Eo was still played an important role on religious matter. Also at Linh Son Nam we found ancient underground sewerage system showing sophisticate technology of Funan. Next we went to Go Cay Thi Site which is located outside the village in the middle of rice fields. Our local guide informed that this is the first site that they discovered during French colonial period. At this site we saw two ruins of a temple. The origin of the small ruins is still unknown but the large one and probably the best one of Oc Eo dedicated to Vishnu and Hindu Sun God. From this site we could clearly see the whole of Ba The Mountain which acted as ancient maritime navigational landmark for Oc Eo.

After long discussion among scholars, we noted that we already spent almost 4 hours at Oc Eo and needed to go to the town of Rach Gia before late evening, so we had to abruptly end the tour. In my opinion, the Funan Oc Eo sites I visited were quite underwhelmed, there are nothing much to see except large ruinous brick platforms. The highlight of Funan are those statues and artifacts in museum but not at the real site. The strangeness of Vishnu turned to Buddha at Linh Son Pagoda is probably the most interesting component for non-expert. But its significance on Southeast Asia history is undeniable. Museum director informed us that ICOMOS already sent expert to review and assisted on management plan for World Heritage Site registration. They also got help from South Korea and Thailand for brick preservation technology, so they are confident that Oc Eo will become World Heritage Site soon. For casual visitor the unique environment and culture of Mekong delta is maybe more interesting, Oc Eo is a good add-on for this region but not the main sight.