Champa Ruins at Mỹ Sơn, Groups B, C, D (built 4th-13th centuries)

 

Champa Ruins at Mỹ Sơn, Groups B, C, D (built 4th-13th centuries)

Mỹ Sơn, which flourished from the late 400s to the mid 1200s, was a center of Champa culture. The Champa kingdom emerged during the 2nd century in the area around Danang. Through commercial and religious contacts with India, the Champa kingdom quickly developed a strong affinity for Indian culture, borrowing Hinduism and the Sanskrit alphabet, as well as Indian architectural and artistic tastes. For many centuries the Champa kingdom existed as an independent entity, warring constantly with the Vietnamese to the north and
the Khmer to the west (although the Khmer were heavily Indianized themselves). Champa endured until the 17th century when it was absorbed by Vietnam.
The ruins at Mỹ Sơn represent a series of constructions over a period of many centuries. The monuments bear a strong resemblence to Khmer structures found in present-day Cambodia and eastern Thailand. Mỹ Sơn was far enough south that it was sheltered from Chinese artistic tastes that saturated northern Vietnam. Instead, the cosmopolitan city of Mỹ Sơn did a brisk trade with India to the west and Java to the south.
The builders at Mỹ Sơn did not just borrow, but developed their own indigenous styles. One technological advantage they discovered was a way to "glue" bricks together using a type of tree resin native to central Vietnam. Although the precise method is now lost, it appears that the Champa builders set the resin in place by baking entire monuments in fire for a number of days. Presumably, the monuments were detailed many weeks later after the structures thoroughly cooled.
The beauty of Mỹ Sơn would be more complete if not for widespread American bombing during the Vietnam war. Even today, unexploded ordnance continues to pose a problem for archaelogists working in the periphery of the Mỹ Sơn area.