The Lost City of Cambodia

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Rutiger
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The Lost City of Cambodia

Post by Rutiger »

The Lost City of Cambodia
Deep in the jungles of southeast Asia, archaeologists have rediscovered the remains of an invisible kingdom that may have been the template for Angkor Wat

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Angkor plateau
On a remote plateau, researchers reveal a royal capital whose splendors prefigure the glories of the Angkor complex. (Chiara Goia)
By Joshua Hammer; Photographs Chiara Goia
APRIL 2016

Jean-Baptiste Chevance senses that we’re closing in on our target. Paused in a jungle clearing in northwestern Cambodia, the French archaeologist studies his GPS and mops the sweat from his forehead with a bandanna. The temperature is pushing 95, and the equatorial sun beats down through the forest canopy. For two hours, Chevance, known to everyone as JB, has been leading me, along with a two-man Cambodian research team, on a grueling trek. We’ve ripped our arms and faces on six-foot shrubs studded with thorns, been savaged by red biting ants, and stumbled over vines that stretch at ankle height across the forest floor. Chevance checks the coordinates. “You can see that the vegetation here is very green, and the plants are different from the ones we have seen,” he says. “That’s an indication of a permanent water source.”

Seconds later, as if on cue, the ground beneath our feet gives way, and we sink into a three-foot-deep muddy pool. Chevance, a lanky 41-year-old dressed in olive drab and toting a black backpack, smiles triumphantly. We are quite possibly the first human beings to set foot in this square-shaped, man-made reservoir in more than 1,000 years. Yet this isn’t merely an overgrown pond we’ve stumbled into. It’s proof of an advanced engineering system that propelled and sustained a vanished civilization.

The vast urban center that Chevance is now exploring was first described more than a century ago, but it had been lost to the jungle until researchers led by him and an Australian colleague, Damian Evans, rediscovered it in 2012. It lies on this overgrown 1,300-foot plateau, known as Phnom Kulen (Mountain of the Lychee fruit), northeast of Siem Reap. Numerous excavations as well as high-tech laser surveys conducted from helicopters have revealed that the lost city was far more sophisticated than anyone had ever imagined—a sprawling network of temples, palaces, ordinary dwellings and waterworks infrastructure. “We knew this might be out there,” says Chevance, as we roar back down a jungle trail toward his house in a rural village on the plateau. “But this gave us the evidence we were hoping for.”

Phnom Kulen is only some 25 miles north of a metropolis that reached its zenith three centuries later—the greatest city of the Khmer Empire, and possibly the most glorious religious center in the history of mankind: Angkor, derived from the Sanskrit word nagara, or holy city, site of the famed temple Angkor Wat. But first there arose Phnom Kulen, the birthplace of the great Khmer civilization that dominated most of Southeast Asia from the 9th to the 15th centuries. The Khmer Empire would find its highest expression at Angkor. But the defining elements of Kulen—sacred temples, reflecting the influence of Hinduism, decorated with images of regional deities and the Hindu god Vishnu, and a brilliantly engineered water-supply system to support this early Khmer capital—would later be mirrored and enlarged at Angkor. By the 12th century, at Angkor, adherence to Buddhism would also put its own stamp on the temples there.

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/l ... EyX77eh.99
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Re: The Lost City of Cambodia

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Angkor plateau
On a remote plateau, researchers reveal a royal capital whose splendors prefigure the glories of the Angkor complex. (Chiara Goia)
By Joshua Hammer; Photographs Chiara Goia
APRIL 2016

HUH??? its still march

rediscovered it in 2012.Phnom Kulen
In a nation run by swine, all pigs are upward-mobile and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely. HST
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Re: The Lost City of Cambodia

Post by Rutiger »

phuketrichard wrote:Angkor plateau
On a remote plateau, researchers reveal a royal capital whose splendors prefigure the glories of the Angkor complex. (Chiara Goia)
By Joshua Hammer; Photographs Chiara Goia
APRIL 2016

HUH??? its still march

rediscovered it in 2012.Phnom Kulen
Some individual articles are released online just before the monthly print issue, which really only sells hard copies to public libraries and such these days.
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Re: The Lost City of Cambodia

Post by phuketrichard »

forgot about that,
BTW
Phnom Kluen is even on my map that was made in 2012
Its not far from Bang Mealea
In a nation run by swine, all pigs are upward-mobile and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely. HST
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Re: The Lost City of Cambodia

Post by ot mien kampf »

How about Oudong?
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Re: The Lost City of Cambodia

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ot mien kampf wrote:How about Oudong?

was Oudong Lost?
In a nation run by swine, all pigs are upward-mobile and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely. HST
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Re: The Lost City of Cambodia

Post by ot mien kampf »

phuketrichard wrote:
ot mien kampf wrote:How about Oudong?

was Oudong Lost?
Parts of it were. Then again in 1975.
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Re: The Lost City of Cambodia

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ot mien kampf wrote:
phuketrichard wrote:
ot mien kampf wrote:How about Oudong?

was Oudong Lost?
Parts of it were. Then again in 1975.
how" its a huge hill in the plains?
In a nation run by swine, all pigs are upward-mobile and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely. HST
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Re: The Lost City of Cambodia

Post by ot mien kampf »

phuketrichard wrote:
ot mien kampf wrote:
phuketrichard wrote:
ot mien kampf wrote:How about Oudong?

was Oudong Lost?
Parts of it were. Then again in 1975.
how" its a huge hill in the plains?
Maybe I'm thinking of Longvek :facepalm:
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Re: The Lost City of Cambodia

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

New evidence of the 9th century ancient palace of Jayavarman II on the back of Kulen Mountain

(Siem Reap): The excavation mission which began on March 12, 2018 and is scheduled to be completed on April 13, 2018, has revealed new evidence of the ancient palace.
The Ministry of Environment has cooperated with ADF, the Apsara Authority, the local authorities, and the people living on the Kulen mountain area to excavate the site named Bantei, now known as the home of Jayavarman Norodom in Phnom Kulen National Park in Prey Thom Village, Anlong Thmor village, Anlong Thom commune, Abong Phnum commune, Svay Leu district, Siem Reap province.
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The Royal Palace was discovered by French researchers but never excavated. In the future, the relevant institutions will look at the potential of Phnom Kulen National Park to fulfill the requirement to be a World Heritage Site

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Freshnews

The smithsonianmag link in the OP contains an interesting article on the subject.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ ... 180958508/
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