Temples to get World Heritage inscriptions

Written by Cheang Sokha

Friday, 14 November 2008 Phnom Penh Post

THE government has announced plans to inscribe Angkor Wat and Preah Vihear temples with the date that they were listed as Unesco World Heritage sites, officials say. Phay Siphan, secretary of state at the Council of Ministers, said that the government will inscribe Angkor Wat in early January and Preah Vihear temple when the situation along the border is peaceful. "We plan to make inscriptions to mark the date the temples were listed as World Heritage sites," Phay Siphan told the Post. "In the original plan, [Prime Minister] Hun Sen was going to preside over the inscriptions, but we will wait and see." Symbol of ownership Preah Vihear, which sits on an escarpment near the Thai border, was given heritage status in July this year, sparking anger among Thai nationalists who claimed the temple was theirs. The Cambodian government spent US$10 million "doing up" the 11th-century ruins before it was shown to delegates, officials said earlier. Angkor Wat, located in the thriving tourist hub of Siem Reap, was listed as a World Heritage site in 1992. Seung Kong, deputy director of the Apsara Authority, said that they had already posted signage outside the Angkor Wat complex to let tourists know it was a World Heritage site, but stone inscriptions would make it official. "We have written them in Khmer, English, French and Japanese to make many people understand," Seung Kong said.