RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q
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MICHAEL SMITHIES

development from this, a temple built around a solid core. A narrow passage runs around the central core in which is set a niche containing the principal Buddha statue. The hollow temple, with immensely thick walls to support the weight of the vaulted roof, was in its early stages a core with the passage around and an antechamber or nave in front, usually on the eastern side. The stupa rising above the core could be of any shape, the Singhalese bell form or the stepped figured squares topped with a pinnacle, a form inspired by Pala architecture from India (particularly from one of the sacred Buddhist shrines at Bodh Gaya where the transformation of the Buddha took place). A development from this simple shrine is the Greek cross plan exemplified by the magnificent Ananda temple built by Kyanzittha, Anawrahta's son, in 1091. This still has the solid core but a double gallery around and antechambers on the axes of all four sides. A further development of this was where the whole temple was raised a level and the central core shifted slightly to contain and enfold the main Buddha facing east; the Thatbinnyu and Sulamani temples are good examples of this later style.

Of the early buildings the Ananda is undoubtedly the most impressive, and the recent (mid-1975) earthquake, far from apparently damaging the building, has removed in parts the plaster and whitewash and shown the arching to be of bricks of alternating light and dark colours. The four main statues in the teaching posture have with overgilding lost their interest, but they impress by their size and the illumination from the hidden upper windows which show the Mon craftsmen as highly skilled technicians. The numerous glazed terracotta plaques ornamenting the base of the temple tell different Jataka tales (the lives of the hundreds of Buddhas before the Gautama Buddha and often taking the form of morality fables) and the small stone sculptures set in the internal walls tell the story of the life of the Gautama Buddha himself.

The terracotta plaques (the great invention of Pagan, as the distinguished archaeologist Bernard Groslier indicated in a lecture to the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society at Pagan) can be seen at their best at the very late (1284) Mingalazedi temple, a little damaged by the earthquake, and the two Petleiks of the 11th century, where the exceptional series is preserved almost in entirety.

The early temples near Myinkaba are remarkable for their excellent preservation and for the quality of their decoration. One

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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299
He served with the 8th Army in North Africa, where as an officer cadet he was among those deployed to surround the Abdin Palace, King Farouk's residence in Cairo, while tanks were moved into the square, a show of force to oblige the King to call on the Wafd leader Nahas Pasha to form a government.

Gibb was then with the 8th Army in its drive into Italy, before transferring to Intelligence, to be parachuted into Yugoslavia to join the British units helping Tito's partisans.

After the war in which he was mentioned in despatches - Gibb returned for a short time to work at Lloyd's before going to the Far East as a journalist for the Sunday Times and other papers.

In Singapore he switched to photography and was one of the first to realise the potential of 16mm film for television. Operating from South-East Asia and the Far East, he quickly became a master of documentary film.

A key point in Gibb's career as a film-maker occurred in the Great Caves of Niah in Borneo in 1954, when he watched the dangerous process whereby birds' nests were gathered from the roofs of the caves and turned into delicacies for the Chinese table: out of that moment grew his prize-winning Borneo series.

Drawn by the legendary appeal of the Angkor complex of ruins, Gibb rebased himself in 1960 in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, to which he drove from Singapore in his Land Rover.

Gibb's enduring interest in Khmer architecture and sculpture, of which Angkor is the supreme expression, was accompanied by an awareness and admiration for the French archaeological achievement in Indo-China. He became a close friend of the late Bernard-Philippe Groslier, the last French curator of the Angkor ruins, and was a frequent guest at the Conservation in the days before Cambodia was engulfed by turmoil.

This Anglo-French intellectual entente proved to be an enduring influence on Gibb's work. Earlier this year Gibb was in close contact with the Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient, which was interested in his films for their archives; and his Angkor films are to be shown at a commemorative ceremony at the Musée Guimet in October.

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