Angkor, a few kilometres to the north of the town of Siem Reap,
is indisputably the most famous, most enormous, most impressive
and most important attraction not only in Cambodia, but
in all of Southeast Asia, and maybe even in all of Asia.
Compared to Angkor the old Royal Palace of Bangkok, the
Shwedagon Pagoda of Rangoon or the Citadel at the old Vietnamese
Emperor's town of Hué fade. Compared to Angkor many of
the attractions, monuments or archaeological sites of other places
appear small, if not irrelevant. Angkor is truly overpowering.
In its dimensions Angkor is best compared to the Egyptian Pyramids.
But Angkor is far more than merely an agglomeration of huge geometrical
structures. Despite its enormous constructional dimensions, it
is ornamented in detail like Notre Dame of Paris and tells
of an ancient art of architecture and sculpturing on a level of
the Acropolis of Athens.
From the early 9th century, after the first independent Khmer
kingdom was founded by King Jayavarman II, until 1431,
when a large part of the population emigrated a few hundred kilometres
to the Southeast, Angkor was the capital of a Khmer state,
which in its prime covered the major part of Southeast Asia from
present-day Myanmar to present-day southern Vietnam, from today's
southern Chinese province of Yunnan deep down the Malayan peninsula.
Many publications create unnecessary confusion by citing the construction
of a "new capital" again and again, whenever a new Khmer
king constructed a new palace a few kilometres from the
former palace and transferred his government there. (The construction
of new palaces is treated similarly as a move of the capital in
many guide books about Myanmar.)
Considering the case of the Angkor realm it can be read, that
its first king, Jayavarman II, set up his capital in Rolous,
the fourth Angkor king, Yasovarman, in Angkor by the name of Yashodharapura,
the seventh Angkor king, Jayavarman IV, at Koh Ker, the
ninth Angkor king, Rajendravarman, again at Angkor; and
the 21st Angkor king, Jayavarman VII built the royal town of Angkor
Thom.
Fact is: almost all of these so-called new capitals are only
a few kilometres apart: the distance between Rolous and Angkor
Thom is just 15 kilometres; only the distance from Angkor to Koh
Ker is more than 50 kilometres.
Because the Angkor kingdom, as the most powerful state of Southeast
Asia of its time, must have commanded a significant permanent
army and a large centralized administrative apparatus,
and because thousands of workers were needed for the construction
and maintenance of the enormous building complexes, it can safely
be assumed that around the stone constructions of the palaces
and temples an appropriate city with a substantial population
must have existed.
The city probably covered large areas of the empty terrain between
the remainders of the temples and palaces. But there is nothing
left of these surrounding settlements, probably because
wood had been used as construction material, which has long since
rotten, and jungle or rice farmers have reclaimed the former urban
area.
Another cause for confusion is, that the entirety of the attraction
is often named Angkor Wat. But strictly speaking, Angkor
Wat is only a single temple within a total complex of many others,
even though it is the most impressive one.
About one kilometer north of Angkor Wat is Angkor Thom,
the royal town constructed during the reign of Jayavarman VII
towards the end of the 12th century (about 400 years after the
founding of the Angkor kingdom). The quadrangular palace area,
enclosed by a wall and a moat running three kilometres on each
side, roughly compares to the forbidden city of Beijing.
Angkor Thom was not built on open terrain. Numerous buildings
within the area, which after the construction of the wall and
the moat became Angkor Thom, had already existed earlier, parts
for centuries. However, many older buildings had been partially
or fully destroyed by a Cham armies when they occupied
Angkor for some time.
Newly built by Jayavarman VII was the Bayon: a colossal
central temple exactly in the middle of Angkor Thom.
East and west of Angkor Thom are two large artificial lakes, so-called
Barays. The lakes are of about equal size measuring some
8 kilometres in east-west and about 2 kilometres in north-south
direction.
It has earlier been assumed that those artificial lakes served
as water reservoirs to irrigate the rice paddies around
Angkor during the dry season, to be refilled during each rainy
season. But current opinion is that the lakes are much too small
for this purpose. It is now presumed that the lakes were created
primarily with artistic intentions, just like the enormous
temple buildings. At the same time, they may have served to raise
fish. Even today the western Baray is used for fish farming;
the eastern Baray is dry.
Numerous structures in the plain of Angkor are worth a visit -
way too many for all of them to be accounted for in this summary.
The most interesting structures certainly are Angkor Wat
and Angkor Thom with the Bayon. Here some more detailed
information concerning these two places:
More information on Angkor:
Angkor Wat
Angkor Thom and Bayon
This page: http://www.cockatoo.com/english/cambodia/cambodia_angkor_attraction.htm
