Eauweck, Hoost Stad van Cambodia

Title

Eauweck, Hoost Stad van Cambodia

Description

Bird’s-eye view of Eauweck, also known as Lovek (Longvek), a historic capital of Cambodia on the Mekong, with a title banner. From Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën. Published by Joannes van Braam and Gerard onder de Linden.

ca. 1724

Artist

Valentijn Francois (1666-1777)

Francois Valentijn (1666-1777) was a Dutch minister and naturalist. He was employed as a minister of the East Indies at 19, and befriended another naturalist Georg Eberhard Rumpf (Rumphius). He also served as an army champlain on an expedition in easter Java. He then returned to Holland and completed this work. The work is still considered was “the most comprehensive work on Asia published in Europe during the early colonial period” (Landwehr). “The first book to give a comprehensive account in text and illustration, of the peoples, places, and natural history of Indonesia” (Bastin & Brommer).

Historical Description

The lower course of the Mekong was already in the 4th century BC. Settled by Khmer, Cham and Funanese. Jayavarman VII was the first king to replace the Hindu-oriented Linga cult with Buddhism, which came to Cambodia as early as the 9th century through the kingdom of Srivijaya. As a result, the kings lost their godlike status, which led to domestic political weakness. In the 13th century the Sukhothai Empire emerged in the west and developed into a strong regional competitor. Its successor empire Ayutthaya conquered Angkor in 1353. The Thai occupiers soon withdrew, but wars with Cham and Shan prevented the Angkor Empire from stabilizing. In 1431 Angkor was conquered again, after which the capital was moved to Phnom Penh. In the following centuries there was constant war with the Thai and Vietnamese; the only exception was the 16th century, when pressure from the west was eased by a strengthening of Burma and the Khmer empire experienced a late bloom. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Vietnam conquered large parts of the Mekong Delta, while Thailand occupied the northern regions of the empire. To prevent a complete takeover of the empire by Thailand and Vietnam, Cambodia turned to France, which had taken southern Vietnam in 1859. In 1863 the country became a protectorate of France under King Norodom I, and in 1887 it joined Vietnam and later Laos in the Indochinese Union. From 1884 Cambodia was practically a colony of France, although the monarchy remained. In 1991, in the Paris Peace Treaty, a political reorganization was agreed with the help of the United Nations.