Today was the highlight of our trip when we saw some of the Angkor
temple complex near Siam Reap.
Angkor , Khmer for Capital City, was the capital city of the Khmer
Empire for approximately the 9th to 15th centuries. Angkor was a megacity
supporting at least 0.1% of the global population during 1010–1220.
The word Angkor is
derived from the Sanskrit nagara , meaning "city". The Angkorian period began in AD 802, when
the Khmer Hindu monarch Jayavarman II declared himself a "universal
monarch" and “god-king”. A Khmer rebellion against Siamese authority
resulted in the 1431 sacking of Angkor by Ayutthaya, causing its population to
migrate south to Longvek.
The ruins of Angkor are located amid forests and
farmland near modern-day Siam Reap city. The temples of the Angkor area number over one
thousand, ranging in scale from nondescript piles of brick rubble scattered
through rice fields to the Angkor Wat, said to be the world's largest single
religious monument. Visitors approach
two million annually, and the entire temple complex, including Angkor Wat and
Angkor Thom, is collectively protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
This blog entry shows photos from the Bayon Temple
which was the state temple of Jayavarman VII. It epitomises the creative genius and inflated
ego of Cambodia’s most celebrated king. Its
54 Gothic towers are decorated with 216 gargantuan smiling faces of
Avalokiteshvara, and it is adorned with 1.2km of extraordinary bas-reliefs
incorporating more than 11,000 figures.
This last picture shows collapsed masonry that has been catalogued in the hope of rebuilding a particular temple structure.
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