Location
The excavation site is located in the midst of Prohear village in
Prey Veng province about 65 km due east of Phnom Penh, the
capital of Cambodia, and 40 km west of the border with Vietnam.
About 65 km to the south is the Bronze Age salt making centre and
Early Iron Age burial site of Go O Chua, where the German
Archaeological Institute together with Vietnamese archaeologists
has been carrying out excavations from 2003 to 2006
History
In Spring 2007, one of the
richest prehistoric burial
sites of Southeast Asia was
found in Prohear village but
almost completely looted by
Iron age cemeteries with the villagers. In May 2007,
rich find complexes an Archaeology student
observed and reported this looting to the Ministry of Culture
and Fine Arts and to the archaeologists of the Memot Centre in
Phnom Penh. Cambodian archaeologists visited the site but
could not stop the looting. During the period up to the Gold jewellery from different
beginning of burials
2008, the villagers dug up the whole area of the burial site and
sold all
Previous Activities
During two excavations in April/May 2008 and February/March 2009 extended over four units with a
total of 120 m² in total 52 burial complexes were saved.
A camera team of Deutsche Welle accompanied Prof. Leisen's temple rescuers on their adventurous
expeditions and observes Dr. Reinecke's gold diggers on one of their final "emergency digs" in
Prohear.
Further information can be obtained from the Website of Deutsche Welle.
Current Work
The discovered artefacts have to be restored (ill. 5),
documented features have to be analyzed in context with
similar richly-equipped burials in southern Vietnam; for
example, with the newly-published site of Giong Lon near
Vung Tau where the first golden eye masks in Vietnam have
been found.
Since 29th November 2010, the most precious artefacts from
the first and second excavation at Prohear and from another
Early Iron Age burial site at Village 10.8 (Kampong Cham
province) that was excavated also with German support are
displayed in the exhibition at the National Museum of German Ambassador visited
Cambodia in Phnom Penh. A second exhibition is planned at Prohear in May 2008
the provincial museum in Prey Veng for 2011.
The next excavation at Prohear will be taking place in
February/March 2011.
Cooperation
Our Cambodian partners are archaeologists from the Memot
Centre, Phnom Penh: Vin Laychour and Seng Sonetra
(Memot-Centre).
Scientific cooperation efforts exist with:
Archaeozoological investigations: Prof. Dr. Norbert Benecke
(Natural Scientific Department of the Head Office of the
German Archaeological Institute)
Bioanthropological investigations: Simone E. Krais
(University of Freiburg, Faculty of Medicine, Department of
Anthropology)
Glass and precious stone analyses: Alison K. Carter Excavation team
(University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Radiocarbon dating: Dr. Bernd Kromer (Radiometry Research Group, Institute of Environmental
Physics, University of Heidelberg)
Strontium isotopic analyses used to detect primarily non-local individuals: Marina Vohberger
(Biozentrum der LMU München, Department Biologie I Bereich Anthropologie )
Metal analyses (gold and silver): Prof. Dr. Ernst Pernicka, Dr. Roland Schwab, Dipl.-Arch. Sandra
Schlosser (Curt-Engelhorn-Centre for Archaeometry, Mannheim)
Metal analyses (bronze): Thomas Oliver Pryce (Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the
History of Art, Oxford)
Contact
Dr. Andreas Reinecke
Südostasien
Telefon: +49-(0)228-997712-25
Telefax: +49-(0)228-997712-49
Email: reinecke@kaak.dainst.de
Andreas Reinecke / Vin Laychour / Seng Sonetra 2009: Discovered: The rich past of Prey Veng. In:
The Cambodian Scene No. 41, 40-41.
Andreas Reinecke / Vin Laychour 2010: The Early Iron Age cemetery at Prohear, Prey Veng
province in Southeast Cambodia: Excavations and results of new analyses: Bioarchaeology in
Southeast Asia and the Pacific: Newsletter Issue 6, 7-11.
Simone Krais/Seng Sonetra 2010: The skeletal remains from Prohear: Bioarchaeology in Southeast
Asia and the Pacific: Newsletter Issue 6, 11-13.
Andreas Reinecke / Vin Laychour / Seng Sonetra 2009: The First Golden Age of Cambodia:
Excavations at Prohear (Bonn 2009). [PDF, 17MB]