Georges Cœdès (August 10, 1886 - October 2, 1969) was a 20th century scholar of southeast Asian archaeology and history. Coedès was born in Paris to a family of supposed Hungarian-Jewish emigres.^[1] In fact, the family was know as having settled in the region of Strasbourg (France) before 1740. His ancestors were working for the royal Treasur^[2]y. His grand-father, Louis Eugène Coedès was a painter, pupil of Leon Coignet.His father Hyppolite worked as a banker. Coedès became director of the National Library of Thailand in 1918, and in 1929 became director of L'École française d'Extrême-Orient, where he remained until 1946. Thereafter he lived in Paris until he died in 1969. He wrote two seminal texts in the field, The Indianized States of Southeast Asia (1968, 1975) and The Making of South East Asia (1966), as well as innumerable articles, in which he developed the concept of the Indianized kingdom. However, the modern consensus is that the Indianization was less complete than Coedès had believed, with many indigenous practices surviving underneath the Indian surface.

Georges Coedès is credited with rediscovering the former kingdom of Srivijaya, centred around the modern-day Indonesian city of Palembang, but with influence extending from Sumatra through to the Malay Peninsula and Java. Some Indonesians, including those of the Palembang area, had not heard of Srivijaya until the 1920s, when Coedès published his discoveries and interpretations in Dutch and Indonesian-language newspapers.^[3], however amongst the educated elite and nobility the history of successive kingdoms and their fates and royal lineage were well known. ^[4]

[edit] Decorations

Coedès received the following royal decoration in the Honours System of Thailand:

• 1919 - Commander (Third Class) of the Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant^[5]
• 1926 French Legion of Honor.

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Higham, Charles (2001). The Civilization of Angkor. Phoenix. ISBN 1842125842.
• National Library of Australia. Asia's French Connection : Georges Coedes and the Coedes Collection