Deep in the Cambodian jungle lie the remains of a
vast medieval city, hidden for centuries. New archaeological
techniques are now revealing its secrets - including an elaborate network of
temples and boulevards, and sophisticated engineering.
In April 1858 a young French explorer, Henri Mouhot,
sailed from London to south-east Asia. For the next three years he traveled widely, discovering exotic jungle insects that still bear his name.
Today he would be all but forgotten were it not for
his journal, published in 1863, two years after he died of fever in Laos, aged
just 35.
Mouhot's account captured the imagination of the public,
but not because of the beetles and spiders he found.
Readers were gripped by his vivid descriptions of
vast temples consumed by the jungle: Mouhot introduced the world to the lost
medieval city of Angkor in Cambodia and its romantic, awe-inspiring splendor.
"One of these temples, a rival to that of
Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michelangelo, might take an honorable
place beside our most beautiful buildings. It is grander than anything left to
us by Greece or Rome," he wrote.
His descriptions firmly established in popular
culture the beguiling fantasy of swashbuckling explorers finding forgotten
temples.
Today Cambodia is famous for these buildings. The
largest, Angkor Wat, constructed around 1150, remains the biggest religious
complex on Earth, covering an area four times larger than Vatican City.
It attracts two million tourists a year and takes
pride of place on Cambodia's flag.
But back in the 1860s Angkor Wat was virtually
unheard of beyond local monks and villagers. The notion that this great temple
was once surrounded by a city of nearly a million people was entirely unknown.
It took over a century of grueling archaeological
fieldwork to fill in the map. The lost city of Angkor slowly began to reappear,
street by street. But even then significant blanks remained.
No comments:
Post a Comment