The Iron Kuay of Cambodia: tracing the role of peripheral populations in Angkorian to colonial Cambodia via a 1200 year old industrial landscape

Smelting in the Shadow of the Iron Mountain: Preliminary Field Investigation of the Industrial Landscape around Phnom Dek, Cambodia (Ninth to Twentieth Centuries a.d.)

“…Early colonial accounts noted traces of "ancient" mining around Phnom Dek ( Dottin 1971 : 40 -41). Recent work by INDAP at Tonle Bak and Sanlong Jaya confirmed that ore from the iron mountain was being exploited in nearby production contexts ( Pryce, Hendrickson, et al 2014). It remains to be determined whether Phnom Dek provided the bulk of the iron consumed by Cambodia's early states.…”

“…Of these three regions, Phnom Dek appears to have the largest and densest evidence of metallurgical activity. Excavation at Phnom Dek and Preah Khan has yet to locate intact furnace structures, but the study of the tuyère form shows at least two different technological systems ( Pryce, Hendrickson, et al 2014). Preliminary compositional analyses of slag, technical ceramics, and ores have also demonstrated that Phnom Dek ore was used from the ninth through to the twentieth century.…”

“…An initial test of this relationship was conducted by IKP and INDAP using a combination of surface surveys, test excavation, artifact analyses, and AMS radiocarbon dating ( Pryce, Hendrickson, et al 2014). The results revealed smelting sites with at least two distinct tuyère morphologies or gauges, defined by the relative size of the bore hole and clay thickness.…”

“…A third type with broad gauge tuyères found at Tonle Bak 1 (STB-01) also appears to be associated with early Angkor (ninth to eleventh centuries). Unfortunately, the measurements for these tuyères were derived from broken fragments and no complete tuyères were re covered at the site ( Pryce, Hendrickson, et al 2014). Morphological differences aside, analysis of slag and mineral chemistry demonstrated that both Angkor (Tonle Bak) and Kuay (Sanlong Jaya) sites utilized ore from nearby Phnom Dek and that the smelting recipe showed a basic chemical consistency through time.…”

“…Phnom Dek is also home to the "Iron Kuay," an ethnic minority historically known to have smelted direct bloomery iron from at least the sixteenth until the early twentieth century ( Dupaigne 1987;Jacques and Lafond 2004). An initial study by the Iron Kuay Project (IKP)/Industries of Angkor Project (INDAP) of production sites in this region identified the presence of two potentially related technological systems spanning the tenth to twentieth centuries a.d. ( Pryce, Hendrickson, et al 2014).…”