Bas Relief - Heaven and Hell

Bas Reliefs can be seen on all four sides of Angkor Wat. So what are they?

A bas-relief or low relief is a sculpture which is not free-standing or in the round, but has a background from which the main elements of the composition project. Bas-relief is very suitable for scenes with many figures and other elements such as a landscape or architectural background.

Reference: Wikipedia

In short, they're the carvings on the walls.

As you can see in the picture below, there're 8 walls with bas reliefs and were meant to view them in the counter-clockwise direction.



One of the most interesting reliefs is the Heaven and Hell gallery. The relief generally describes the life in heaven and punishments in hell.

The two videos below are narrated by Kuan about the gallery, in mandarin. The video is separated into 2 parts because we were interupted by other tourists over there. Enjoy.

Part 1



Part 2



You can also check out my previous post to view other videos on the magnificent Churning of the Ocean of Milk, Battle of Gods, Vishnu's Victory over Bana and Battle of Lanka.

For more details on the reliefs, you can visit this website. Billy, out.