It is not known much about the lifestyle about the Khmer people. Some stone inscriptions were found in the Angkor’s region. But it has been seen that most of them mainly referred to the religious related topics. It is very rare to find anything where you can see something related to the daily or average life of the local Khmer people. You cannot make out a typical day of earlier Khmer people.
The stone sculptures on the relief of Angkor Thom do depict some glances of the daily life of Khmer people in those days. But it is very strange that most of our knowledge about the life of the Khmer people come from the Chinese Chronicle. This was written by Zhou Daguan. He was popularly known as a Chinese ambassador of Yuan Dynasty.
In the year 1926 he visited the Angkor Empire. At that time he traveled widely in and around the kingdom for more than a year and it occurred before his return. Zhou Daguan did a unique thing. He stayed rather lived with the local people in different circumstances. Thus he studied their lifestyle and depicted quite an exact picture about the activities and life of the normal people. With his work it has become possible for us to think about them and strengthen our imagination.
According to Zhou Daguan’s description, the men and women of that period were mostly seen as barefooted and breast-naked. Often they were seen wrapped with a piece of cloth only around their waists. He describes women in an explicit manner. In his description there were no hair ornaments for ordinary females. Some time they were seen wearing golden rings on the fingers. Bracelets were there for their arms. Most of the times, beautiful women were sent into the court to serve the king or even his royal family.
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