Borbála Száva

Borbála Száva is a Hungarian historian and museum professional specializing in Angkorian iconography and costume studies. 

She received her PhD from the University of Pecs, Hungary, where her research focused on carved costume depictions at Banteay Srei temple. She has taught courses on Southeast Asian Art, religion, and history at Eotvos Lorand University, the University of Pecs, and Karoli Gaspar University, Hungary. She previously worked as a curator of Southeast Asian museum collections in Budapest. 

Currently, Borbála Száva she is an independent researcher conducting fieldwork in Cambodia on the iconography and costume typology of 11th-century Angkorian temples. Specifically, she started in 2024 a project aiming at the construction of the first comprehensive costume database for Baphuon, comprising more than 800 entries as in 2026. By analyzing garments, jewelry, and hairstyles within their narrative context, the study demonstrates that attire functions not merely as ornamentation but as a key iconographic marker. 

As she demonstrated with her 2018 PhD thesis, Costumes Carved in Stone in Banteay Srei: An Analysis of the Figural Depictions at a Tenth-Century Shaiva Sanctuary (University of Pécs), ​“specific costume types correlate with social rank, ritual function, and shifting narrative roles, allowing refined identification of mythological episodes. A costume-based can methodological approach can offer new insights into specific temples, their iconographical program, spatial logic, and position within the development Angkorian art and culture.”