Looking up from the rice fields, you see three dark red brick masses standing in a straight line on a high mound, with no mountain sheltering their back and no enclosing wall framing their base. The central mass rises well above the two flanking ones, and as you approach the foot of the towers an unusual detail appears. The lower body and the roof cornices are not brick at all, but sandstone carved with elephant-headed lions, multi-headed serpents and bands of lotus petals running around each tower.
This is Dương Long, a cluster of Cham Hindu (Cham Brahmanical) temple towers built around the late 12th to early 13th century when the capital of Champa stood in the Vijaya region. French researchers who surveyed the site called it the Ivory Tower (Tour d'Ivoire), while local residents named it after nearby villages as An Chánh Tower or Bình An Tower. The Central Tower reaches 38.81 meters, making it the tallest ancient brick tower still standing in Southeast Asia.
IThe deities worshipped and the three towers
These are temple towers of Cham Hinduism, neither a Buddhist pagoda nor a funerary stupa. In this architectural tradition, each tower is a kalan, an enclosed sanctuary with a single true doorway opening to the east and a narrow, dim interior cell just large enough for the sacred image and the officiating priest.
In Hindu teaching, the temple tower is not a residential hall for a congregation, but a miniature image of the sacred mountain at the center of the cosmos. Its roof therefore steps inward through successive false tiers, growing smaller as it rises until it closes in a stone finial at the summit. Worshippers do not enter the chamber to sit at length. They step forward to present offerings before the sacred object and then withdraw to the courtyard.
The three great deities of Hinduism are Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer and regenerator. Throughout their history the Cham leaned strongly toward Shiva, and the sacred emblem most often placed inside a Cham sanctuary is the Linga set upon a Yoni pedestal, the symbol of generative power.
At Dương Long specifically, it must be stated with precision that no inscription survives on site naming which deity was enshrined in each tower, nor does any intact main cult object remain in place inside the three chambers. What survives as evidence are the stone sculptures recovered around the foot of the towers, most notably an eight-armed, three-headed relief of Brahma discovered in 1985 near the North Tower and recognized as a National Treasure in 2016, together with reliefs of Indra, Shiva, Uma and Lakshmi, Kala masks, Naga serpents, Makara sea monsters and a Yoni pedestal unearthed in later excavations.
Because the complex consists of three towers aligned in a row, the former Bình Định Provincial Museum, cited in Dân trí, noted that parallel three-tower Cham complexes normally honor the Trimurti triad, with the Central Tower dedicated to Shiva, the South Tower to Vishnu and the North Tower to Brahma. That reading fits the three-tower form, but because no inscription has yet confirmed it, the library records it as a reasoned hypothesis rather than a settled fact.
One common misunderstanding should be addressed through the historical record. Seeing how closely the stone carvings here resemble Khmer art, many visitors conclude that the Dương Long towers were built by the Khmer. That is not the case. These sanctuaries were built by the Cham, on Cham land, following the kalan ground plan of Champa during the period when its capital stood at Vijaya.
What is real is the artistic influence. During the 12th and 13th centuries, the cultures of Champa and the Khmer Empire came into close contact, and Cham sculpture of this period adopted several motifs familiar from the Angkor region, most visibly multi-headed Naga serpents and the extensive use of large sandstone blocks. Borrowing motifs and stonework techniques is one thing, while the builders and owners of the monument are another.
IIFrom the Vijaya period to recent excavations
The dossier of the Department of Cultural Heritage dates the construction to roughly the late 12th to early 13th century. This date is established by analyzing building materials, architecture and sculpture rather than from a dated foundation stele, which is why shorter accounts often compress the span to the late 12th century. Every date given here should be read as an approximate period rather than a single year.
- Late 12th centuryConstruction of the three towersThe complex was erected in the late 12th to early 13th century during the Vijaya period of the kingdom of Champa, when the royal capital lay on the Kôn River plain. This was also the phase in which Cham architecture made its heaviest use of sandstone.
- Early 20th centuryFrench survey and the name Tour d'IvoireFrench scholars surveyed and measured the complex, naming it Tour d'Ivoire, translated into Vietnamese as tháp Ngà (Ivory Tower). That name entered scholarly literature alongside the two village names An Chánh and Bình An.
- 1980 to 1985National heritage ranking and discovery of the Brahma reliefThe Ministry of Culture and Information ranked the complex as a national architectural and artistic heritage site under Decision No. 92-VHTT/QĐ on July 10, 1980. In 1984 the North Tower was reinforced, and in 1985 the three-headed, eight-armed relief of Brahma was discovered in the North Tower area.
- 2006 to 2009Archaeological excavations around the baseExcavations covering more than 3,000 square meters exposed the buried tower bases, an open-air shrine structure, a Yoni pedestal and thousands of carved stone fragments including reliefs of Indra and Shiva, Kala masks, Naga serpents, Makara figures and lotus bands. Văn Hóa newspaper cites the 2006 to 2008 campaigns, while VnExpress and Thanh Niên list three seasons in 2006, 2007 and 2009.
- From 2006Restoration of the tower bodies and roofsConservation work continued over several years, stabilizing the tower walls and rebuilding collapsed masonry sections. According to VietnamPlus, the project used roughly 340,000 bricks fired by traditional methods.
- 2015 and 2016Special national heritage site and National TreasureThe complex was ranked as a special national architectural and artistic heritage site under Decision No. 2367 of the Prime Minister on December 23, 2015. On December 22, 2016, the Dương Long Brahma relief was recognized as a National Treasure under Decision No. 2496.
- 2026National Treasure dossier for the Naga stone collectionOn September 15, 2026, the Gia Lai Provincial Museum held a scientific conference to finalize a nomination dossier for National Treasure status for the collection of Naga serpent reliefs excavated at Dương Long, highlighted by a five-headed Naga hood carved from a single stone block.
Several discrepancies among the sources should be noted clearly. Regarding height, the official heritage dossier gives exact measurements of 38.81 meters for the Central Tower, 32.94 meters for the South Tower (some accounts print 31.94 meters) and 31.76 meters for the North Tower. News reports commonly round these figures to 39 meters, 33 meters and 32 meters, an overview on the State Committee for Overseas Vietnamese portal prints 40 meters for the Central Tower and 38 meters for the flanking towers, while older publications sometimes cite 24 meters for the Central Tower, a figure taken before the buried base was excavated. The library follows the measurements of the official heritage dossier and notes that the differing numbers reflect when and how the towers were measured rather than any change in the structures.
Regarding administrative names, the heritage dossier places the complex in Tây Bình and Bình Hòa communes, Tây Sơn district, Bình Định province, all former units. Under Resolution No. 1664 of the National Assembly Standing Committee dated June 16, 2025, Tây Vinh, Tây Bình, Bình Hòa and Bình Thành communes were merged into the new Bình An commune, so the site now lies in An Chánh and Vân Tường villages, Bình An commune, Gia Lai province.
IIIThree tower masses and stone set into brick
The three towers stand in a single row along a north-south axis across a main footprint of about 370 square meters, with the true doorway of all three opening to the east. The Central Tower is the largest and tallest, while the two flanking towers are lower and smaller, forming a symmetrical composition across the central axis. Beyond the three main towers, archaeological excavations have also revealed traces of two auxiliary brick structures to the west and an open-air shrine.
38.81 meters tall on a square base measuring 16.5 meters per side, the tallest surviving ancient brick tower in Southeast Asia. Its walls carry plain pilasters without floral carving, sandstone base moldings survive clearly on the south face, while the doorway and front vestibule have largely collapsed.
32.94 meters tall on a square base of 14 meters per side, with stepped plain walls and a four-tiered roof. It is the best preserved of the three towers in overall form, retaining many carved sandstone roof elements depicting Gajasimha figures.
31.76 meters tall, the lowest and also the most heavily damaged of the three, with hollowed sections in its body that were first reinforced in 1984. Its south face still preserves a false doorway and finely carved sandstone base bands.
A distinctive feature of Dương Long. The base moldings and many corner elements use massive sandstone blocks fitted directly into the brick core, with reliefs carved into stone rather than into brick as on most Cham towers.
The zones of densest ornament, featuring elephant-headed Gajasimha lions, lions, Naga serpents, Makara sea monsters, Kala faces, cross-legged seated figures, dancers and bands of lotus petals encircling the towers.
Thousands of carved stone fragments recovered around the towers and now kept at the provincial museum. Foremost among them is the 1.28-meter-tall, 600-kilogram Brahma relief recognized as a National Treasure, while Naga serpent motifs account for 70 to 80 percent of all carved stone fragments found at the site according to Văn Hóa newspaper.
Why brick walls here have stood for nearly eight hundred years
The tower walls are built of fired brick laid so tightly that mortar joints are barely visible to the naked eye. The exact binding agent used by Cham masons remains debated, with leading hypotheses pointing to rubbing brick faces together with a thin resin glue from dipterocarp (dầu rái) or litsea (bời lời) trees, laying partially fired bricks and firing the completed mass, or using a slurry mixed from ground brick dust. What is certain is that the masonry uses neither concrete nor steel reinforcement, yet still bears the load of nearly forty meters of height.
What sets Dương Long apart is the decision to insert heavy stone into a brick tower. Sandstone weighs far more than brick, so fitting massive stone blocks into the base and upper roof cornices posed a demanding structural challenge. In return, the carvers gained a surface that allowed deep, almost three-dimensional relief capable of holding sharp edges through centuries of rain and sun. Looking up at these three towers shows a moment when Cham builders were confident enough to crown high brick sanctuaries with heavy carved stone.
IVThe lie of the land and orientation
One point should be stated plainly before reading further. Hinduism does not teach feng shui. Feng shui is an East Asian system of geomancy, and the Cham builders did not use it when choosing this mound. The fact that all three true doorways open to the east follows the rule of Hindu temple architecture, in which east is the direction of the rising sun whose first light must pass through the doorway to touch the sacred emblem inside. The reading below is a comparative note offered by the library for readers familiar with traditional Vietnamese geomancy, not something recorded in Cham inscriptions or intended by the builders.
Read through traditional Vietnamese geomancy, the first feature is standing alone on the plain. The complex sits on a high mound rising from the flatlands of the Kôn River, surrounded by rice fields with no mountain range backing it closely. In traditional land-reading, this is a solitary prominence (độc tôn) formation, where the structure itself serves as the high peak in place of a mountain, in sharp contrast to the mountain-backed, water-facing (tựa sơn hướng thủy) posture favored by northern Vietnamese temples. The Cham did not look for a mountain to lean against, they built the height themselves.
The second feature is the eastward facing. In traditional Vietnamese geomancy, the east belongs to the Wood phase and corresponds to the rising vitality of morning, so temples facing east are read as receiving ascending qi. Hindu temple architecture chooses the east for a different reason, namely that the first rays of morning sunlight must reach the sacred image inside the sanctuary. The two traditions arrive at the same compass direction through two distinct lines of reasoning, and what is worth studying lies in that difference rather than in the coincidence.
The third feature is three peaks standing in a row. A traditional Vietnamese eye naturally reads a group of three towers as a three-mountain (tam sơn) formation, with a tall central peak and two lower flanking peaks forming the Chinese character for mountain (sơn). That silhouette is indeed prized in geomantic manuals. Yet here the layout comes from ritual rather than geomancy, since the three kalan are three individual sanctuaries, each housing its own cult object, placed side by side to form a royal temple compound rather than to imitate a mountain range.
Finally, there is the mountain within the tower. Traditional Vietnamese geomancy reads the lie of the land from the outside in, taking a natural mountain as the backing support for a building. Hindu temple architecture works in the opposite direction. The tower mass with its roof tiers stepping inward toward the summit is itself the image of the sacred cosmic mountain, meaning the building recreates the mountain within its own body. Once this point is understood, it is no longer surprising why a Cham tower needs no mountain ridge behind it, and why this complex stands out in the open plain rather than nestling against the foot of a nearby hill.
VRitual worship inside the temple towers
It should be stated clearly at the outset that no traditional Cham temple rituals are performed at Dương Long today. This complex belongs to the group of monuments that ceased functioning as active sanctuaries centuries ago, unlike the Cham towers in the former Ninh Thuận and Bình Thuận regions where the Katê festival is still celebrated annually by the Cham Brahmanical community. The table below reconstructs the rituals that once took place inside a kalan, based on excavated artifacts, architectural features and general Cham epigraphic sources, rather than describing a current festival calendar at the site.
| Ritual | Practice | Physical traces at the site |
|---|---|---|
| Bathing the sacred emblem | The officiating priest poured water, milk or perfumed oil over the sacred emblem inside the sanctuary, letting the liquid flow down the pedestal and out through a spout. | A narrow kalan chamber with a sloped floor and drainage channel, along with the Yoni pedestal uncovered in archaeological excavations. |
| Offering flowers, incense and lamps | Daily worship in a Hindu sanctuary, presented directly before the deity by the priest rather than performed before an indoor congregation. | A single true doorway and a dim interior chamber just wide enough for an officiating priest standing before the altar. |
| Circumambulating the sanctuary | Worshippers walked clockwise around the exterior of the tower, keeping the sanctuary on their right-hand side. | A paved courtyard surrounding the bases of all three towers, wide enough for a complete circuit. |
| Royal endowments | Kings and nobles dedicated rice fields, temple attendants and precious vessels to the sanctuary, recording their gifts on stone steles. | The monumental scale of the three towers and the volume of carved sandstone, which only royal patronage could sustain. |
| Sacred music and dance | Music and dance formed an integral part of temple offerings, performed by dancers and musicians attached to the sanctuary. | Carved reliefs of dancers and musicians among the stone fragments excavated around the foot of the towers. |
| Maintaining and repairing the sanctuary | Repairing a temple was regarded as an act of religious merit comparable to founding one. | Multiple layers of brick repairs from different periods within the same wall sections, documented during excavations of the base. |
Vietnamese residents in the surrounding area later developed the custom of burning incense at the foot of the towers at the Lunar New Year and on the first and fifteenth days of the lunar month. That is a later local practice that grew up beside the monument rather than a continuation of Cham ritual, and the library records it as such without ranking one practice above the other.
VILocation And How To Get There
- Address
- thôn An Chánh và thôn Vân Tường, xã Bình An, tỉnh Gia Lai
- Getting there
- The tower complex stands in An Chánh and Vân Tường villages, Bình An commune, Gia Lai province, on the Kôn River plain, formerly Tây Bình and Bình Hòa communes, former Tây Sơn district, former Bình Định province.
- Coordinates
- 13.9249, 108.9885
This is an architectural and archaeological monument, and the rule of the site is to protect both the artifacts and visitors near high stonework. Management signs advise visitors to stay at least 5 meters away from the foot of the towers where high stone blocks pose a risk of falling. Visitors are expected not to touch or lean against the carved sandstone blocks at the base, not to climb onto the excavated foundation walls, and not to place offerings on loose stone architectural elements arranged around the courtyard. If you wish to light incense, please use the designated censer rather than wedging sticks into brick joints.
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?Quick Questions
Where are the Dương Long Cham Towers located
The complex stands in An Chánh and Vân Tường villages, Bình An commune, Gia Lai province, on the Kôn River plain. The heritage dossier lists the former administrative units of Tây Bình and Bình Hòa communes, Tây Sơn district, Bình Định province, which were merged into Bình An commune under Resolution 1664 in 2025.
Which deities were worshipped at the Dương Long Towers
These are Cham Hindu temple towers, and no inscription survives on site naming the deity of each tower. The former Bình Định Provincial Museum, cited in Dân trí, noted that three-tower Cham complexes normally honor the Trimurti triad, with the Central Tower dedicated to Shiva, the South Tower to Vishnu and the North Tower to Brahma, though this remains an inference from the layout rather than a documented fact.
How tall are the Dương Long Cham Towers
According to the heritage dossier of the Department of Cultural Heritage, the Central Tower stands 38.81 meters tall, the South Tower 32.94 meters and the North Tower 31.76 meters. The Central Tower is the tallest surviving ancient brick tower in Southeast Asia. Some older publications cite lower numbers measured before the buried bases were excavated.
Why is Dương Long also called the Ivory Tower
The name Ivory Tower (tháp Ngà) translates Tour d'Ivoire, the name given by French researchers who surveyed the complex in the early 20th century. Local residents also named the site after nearby villages as An Chánh Tower and Bình An Tower.
Were the Dương Long Towers built by the Khmer
No. The towers were built by the Cham during the Vijaya period, following the Cham kalan architectural plan. What is present is strong Khmer artistic influence in motifs such as multi-headed Naga serpents and the extensive use of large sandstone blocks, reflecting close cultural contact between Champa and the Khmer Empire in the 12th and 13th centuries.