The
1,200-year-old city — just 25 miles west of Angkor Wat in
mountainous Phnom Kulen region — was found by Sydney University’s
Damien Evans and his team using the latest airborne Lidar laser
scanning technology.
Archaeologists
in the Siem Reap region using new maps acquired using LIDAR have
discovered an entire Angkor city where previously only a few
isolated temples were known to be.
Move over, Indy!
A group of real-life archaeologists have discovered an ancient city
that had been lost to the mists and undergrowth of Cambodia for
more than a thousand years.
The medieval city, called Mahendraparvata, is thought to be some
1,200 years old, and was initially discovered through the use of
Lidar, an airborne laser-scanning technology.
Australian Archaeologist Damien Evans, the director of the
University of Sydney's research center in Cambodia, made the
arduous trek through the thick Cambodian jungles of the mountainous
Phnom Kulen region to stumble upon ancient temples, canals, and
Bhuddas carved into rock, now overgrown with moss.
The Lidar-light detection equipment was strapped to a helicopter
and was able to detect stone structures through the thick,
inhospitable jungle.
Mahendraparvata, located 25 miles west of Angkor Wat, predates the
famed structures by some 350 years.
The astounding news was exclusively reported by the Sydney Morning
News.
Evans said that the Lidor images taken several weeks ago hinted at
something unusual. "We see from the imagery that the landscape was
completely devoid of vegetation," he told the paper.
But how or why did the city fail? Evans has a hypothesis.
"One theory we are looking at is that the severe environmental
impact of deforestation and the dependence on water management led
to the demise of the civilization… perhaps it became too successful
to the point of becoming unmanageable."
Evans was joined on the expedition by a one-legged guide named Heng
Heap, and a reporter and photographer from Fairfax Media, who said
they had to orienteer through miles of dense undergrowth and bogs,
navigating on small paths in the jungle.
Adding to the challenge — the Siem Reap region is still littered
with active land mines.
Thankfully, the crew made it safely to the ruins. Photographer Nick
Moir captured the archaeologists sifting through the site.
The full scope of their findings will be published in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
French botanist Henri Mahout was the first person from the West to
discover the Angkor Wat temple in the 1860s, though it was known to
local people and used for religious purposes.
The Hindu temple, which was constructed in the 12th century by
Khmer King Suryavarman II, is a UNESCO world heritage site, and one
of the wonders of the ancient world.
