Owning enduring history, a great treasure of cultural and artistic values, along with a huge number of travelers discovering in 2014, Temples of Angkor headed the Lonely Planet’s list of the 500 best must-seen sites in the world.
Many people have the name “Angkor Wat” in their mind, but maybe they don’t perceive that it’s just one temple of over 1,000 in Angkor site. The complex is actually an enormous 700-year old city, with canals, temples, shrines and tombs spread over 400 km2, hiding deeply in the dense jungle of southern Cambodia for centuries.
Here’s several explanations for why Angkor headed the list of best attractions on the Earth.
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The temples of Angkor is the architectural pinnacle of Khmer Empire dominated from the 9th to the 13th century. For hundreds of years, it was the Khmer Kingdom’s capital, which at times ruled much of Indochina, from present-day Laos and Myanmar to Thailand and southern Vietnam.
Over two million tourists travel to Angkor in 2014.
Angkor has an area of over 400 square km.
The temple site are all located inside of the Angkor Archaeological Park, where numerous diverse Khmer constructions built between the 9th to the 15th century concentrated.
A part from a religious center, it’s also a residence to people, as a number of villages inside the park are occupied. The local income is mainly relied on agriculture.
Each temple has sophisticated designs of various deities, but also of daily life. The Bayon temple, for instance, has sculpted-details specially depicting images of families making dinner, men drinking together, women working. Bayon possesses 37 towers and is decorated by 216 faces. It is the only temple in Angkor built for Mahayana Buddhism, dedicated to worship Buddha. After the death of King Jayavarman, it was remodeled to Hinduism style.
Ta Prohm is one of the most photographed temples (and famous for being featured in “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider”). Like an eerie magic it’s almost swallowed up by the old forest. The present condition is purposefully maintained, with huge roots cover up the temple’s roofs that creates for it a very uncanny beauty.
Right on the Cambodia’s national flag is Angkor Wat, the most renowned temple, and pride of the Khmer.
It is constructed to primarily worship Hindu god Vishnu, and is the world’s largest religious monument. The beauty of the construction is described as a heaven on the earth. While most of the temples in the site are ruined, it has retained its initial state, and is still spectacular since it was built.
Angkor Wat feature more than 3,000 carvings of Apsaras – Hindu goddess – with 37 diverse postures. Afterwards, Khmer people imitated postures and gestures of these goddess carved on the temples’ walls to create the classical fairy dance – Robam Tep Apsara.
The temple is a combination between two basic plans of Khmer temple architecture: the temple-mountain and the later galleried temple.
Angkor Thom is another grand structure, which spreads across more than 10 km2 and is surrounded by citadels and moats. It was used to be the world’s largest city in the 12th century.
Colossal statues are sprinkled throughout the complex.
Perhaps being a small temple, but Banteay Srei – the temple of women – is one of the most extravagant decorated ones. Dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva, it’s built from a pinkish limestone and features complicated patterns on almost every surface.
During hundreds of years, Angkor site has featured intricate hydrological engineering systems and a massive system of canals and reservoirs that is able to be viewed today.
No one actually clears why a vast religious site like Angkor was used to be forgotten. A supposition argued that this was derived from a big religious conversion from Khmer’s Hindu to Buddhism in the 13th and the 14th century; while another one claimed that the elaborate water systems were broken down, so it was impossible to live here and the residents compelled to leave. Some people again believed that it was due to war: a bloody battle occurred caused people to evacuate.
Angkor was always known to locals, though it remained abandoned and increasingly shrouded by the thick forest. Locals took Westerners to the site as early as 1586. Centuries was gone until late 19th century, European archaeologists started paying attention to Angkor thanks to Louis Delaporte and Adolf Bastian, who forthrightly boosted the site, leading to the restoration and searching efforts from 1907 to 1970 by the École française d’Extrême-Orient.
Restoration was interrupted and not truly effective until 1993 when UNESCO launched a major restoration campaign after considering it both a World Heritage site and a World Heritage in Danger in 1992.
Source: Business Insider
