Angkor (Khmer: អង្គរ [ʔɑŋkɔː], lit. 'capital city'), also known as Yasodharapura (Khmer: យសោធរបុរៈ; Sanskrit: यशोधरपुर), was the capital city of the Khmer Empire, located in present-day Cambodia. The empire flourished from approximately the 9th to the 15th centuries. The site of Angkor has a variety of religious temples, libraries, moats, and other buildings. These other buildings could have been used by officials to the grand palace housing the Khmer king. Those constructed outside the main complex were not made of stone. One of the more visited places in Angkor is Angkor Wat, a temple complex that is one of Cambodia's tourist attractions.
The name Angkor is derived from nokor (នគរ), a Khmer word meaning "kingdom" which in turn derived from Sanskrit nagara (नगर), meaning "city". The Angkorian period began in AD 802, when the Khmer Hindu monarch Jayavarman II declared himself a "universal monarch" and "god-king", and lasted until the late 14th century, first falling under Ayutthayan suzerainty in 1351. A Khmer rebellion against Siamese authority resulted in the 1431 sacking of Angkor by Ayutthaya, causing its population to migrate south to Longvek. The alternate name, Yasodharapura, was derived from the name of the foster mother of Lord Krishna in Hinduism this temple was completed around 921. Hinduism was the dominant religion in the ancient Khmer Empire, and many temples constructed by Khmer kings were dedicated to Hindu deities, including Angkor Wat.
The ruins of Angkor are located amid forests and farmland north of the Great Lake (Tonlé Sap) and south of the Kulen Hills, near modern-day Siem Reap city (13°24′N, 103°51′E), in Siem Reap Province. The temples in the Angkor area sum to over one thousand, including Angkor Wat, is a large religious monument. Many of the temples at Angkor held a variety of religious beliefs, including Shaivite, Buddhist, and Vaishnavite, and many others. Together, they comprise the most significant site of Khmer architecture. Visitors approach two million annually. Angkor was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992. This increases their ability to conserve the site for future generations. They are running into problems in trying to preserve the site.
In 2007, an international team of researchers using satellite photographs and other modern techniques concluded that Angkor had been the largest pre-industrial city in the world by surface area, with an elaborate infrastructure system connecting an urban sprawl of at least 1,000 square kilometres (390 sq mi). Archaeologists created an archaeological map that revealed the true size and uncovered a sophisticated water management system. Angkor was considered to be a "hydraulic city" because it had a complicated water management network, which was used for systematically stabilizing, storing, and dispersing water throughout the area. This network is believed to have been used for irrigation in order to offset the unpredictable monsoon season and to also support the increasing population. Although the size of its population remains a topic of research and debate, newly identified agricultural systems in the Angkor area may have supported between 750,000 and 1,000,000 people.
Archaeological overview
Bronze Age to Iron Age in Angkor
The Angkor site transitioned from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age. Archaeologists dated this shift to 420 BC, using radiocarbon dating of bivalve shells found in graves with the dead. Finding these bivalve shells shows that from the 14th century and possibly earlier. You can see that the people who still lived in Angkor at this time. Which set up the coastal tracts from Southeast Asia, which were involved in the exchange of goods. The earliest Iron Age artefacts they found at this site were iron and bronze spearheads, tool kits with iron-bladed knives, hoes for tilling land, and bangles (bracelets). The Preah Khan is the only temple complex that had remains of iron development at this site, where they found iron slag in proximity to this temple complex.
Construction of the buildings in Angkor
The Angkor site and landscape were constructed mainly with Hinduism and Buddhism practitioners in mind. Some of the stone used in the construction of the Angkor came from a quarry that they located using lidar. The quarry that they found was located near Kulen Mountain and was used in the construction of some of the buildings in Angkor. Some of the buildings in Angkor were constructed of wood and tiles. Many of the buildings were built using grey and brown sandstone. This sandstone has magnetic ability which makes it possible to split the construction of these buildings into separate stages of development.
The single largest temple of the Angkorian region, Angkor Wat, was built between 1113 and 1150 by King Suryavarman II. Suryavarman ascended to the throne after prevailing in a battle with a rival prince. An inscription says that, in the course of combat, Suryavarman leapt onto his rival's war elephant and killed him.
After consolidating his political position through military campaigns, diplomacy, and a firm domestic administration, Suryavarman launched into the construction of Angkor Wat as his personal temple mausoleum. With walls nearly half a mile long on each side, Angkor Wat grandly portrays the Hindu cosmology, with the central towers representing Mount Meru, home of the gods; the outer walls, the mountains enclosing the world; and the moat, the oceans beyond.
The traditional theme of identifying the Khmer devaraja with the gods, and his residence with that of the celestials, is very much in evidence. The measurements of the temple and its parts in relation to one another have cosmological significance. Suryavarman had the walls of the temple decorated with bas reliefs depicting not only scenes from mythology, but also from the life of his own imperial court. In one of the scenes, the king is portrayed as larger than his subjects, sitting cross-legged on an elevated throne and holding court, while a bevy of attendants make him comfortable with the aid of parasols and fans.
Roads and Canals
Angkor consists of roads and canals that intertwine through the civilization, creating a grid-like outline that contour the buildings. These aspects of Angkor are said to be important for the past, being used for things such as transportation or trade. Each block contains homes or reservoirs that were essential for every day life. However, with the population so large at the time, large-scale hydraulic systems were difficult to create, making it hard to do projects essential for community life. Archaeologists suggest that nearby sites were not connected to Angkor via main roads, yet many were connected with rivers. Various roads were mostly elevated above the land with ditches alongside the roads. These trenches would fill up during heavy rain, which could have possibly been used for water transport between communities. The natural canals supported Angkor in natural ways, including the use of an irrigation system. These canals were intertwined among the architecture and allowed flooding in crop fields, creating an environmentally friendly way of watering thousands of crops at a time.
The roads were constructed using many layers of dirt and soil that were compacted together. In the past, they had methods of regenerating and improving these roads. These roads and canals are also hypothesized to have helped with contact among other empires. The roads share main principles that point to communication. These principles include engineered routes and the development of roads over time, meaning they became more complexly constructed as time progressed. Finally, these roads are made to expand as the economy grows, making archaeologists believe that communication was their main use.
LiDAR
At the Angkor site, archaeologists have used LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) to uncover structures such as building rods, monuments, and other features. This was beneficial for archaeologists to use because of Angkor's location. Some of the site, is in dense forest, which would be difficult for archaeologists to navigate. They used LiDAR to show that the cities after the decline of Angkor were sparsely populated.
Historical overview
Seat of the Khmer Empire
Angkor underwent many empire leaders and experienced a shifting royalties for many years, which had potential to create chaos. The Angkorian period begun shortly after 800 AD, when the Khmer King Jayavarman II announced the independence of Kambujadesa (Cambodia) from Java. According to Sdok Kok Thom inscription, circa 781 Indrapura was the first capital of Jayavarman II, located in Banteay Prei Nokor, near today's Kompong Cham. After he eventually returned to his home, the former kingdom of Chenla, he quickly built up his influence, conquered a series of competing kings, and in 790 became king of Kambuja. He then moved northwest to Mahendraparvata, in present-day Kulen mountains, inland north from the great lake of Tonle Sap.
He also established the city of Hariharalaya (now known as Roluos) at the northern end of Tonlé Sap. Through a program of military campaigns, alliances, marriages and land grants, he achieved a unification of the country bordered by China to the north, Champa (now Central Vietnam) to the east, the ocean to the south and a place identified by a stone inscription as "the land of cardamoms and mangoes" to the west. In 802 AD, Jayavarman articulated his new status by declaring himself "universal monarch" (chakravartin) and, in a move that was to be imitated by his successors and that linked him to the cult of Siva, taking on the epithet of "god-king" (devaraja). Before Jayavarman, Cambodia had consisted of a number of politically independent principalities collectively known to the Chinese by the names Funan and Chenla.
In 889 AD, Yasovarman ascended to the throne. A great king and an accomplished builder, he was celebrated by one inscription as "a lion-man; he tore the enemy with the claws of his grandeur; his teeth were his policies; his eyes were the Veda." Near the old capital of Hariharalaya, Yasovarman constructed a new city, Yasodharapura, centered on the hill and temple of Phnom Bakheng. In the tradition of his predecessors, he also constructed a massive reservoir called baray.
The significance of such reservoirs has been debated by modern scholars, some believing the use was the irrigation of rice fields, others have regarded them as religiously charged symbols of the great mythological oceans surrounding Mount Meru, the abode of the gods. The mountain, in turn, was represented by an elevated temple, in which the "god-king" was represented by a lingam. In accordance with this cosmic symbolism, Yasovarman built his central temple on a low hill known as Phnom Bakheng, surrounding it with a moat fed from the baray. He also built numerous other Hindu temples and ashrams, or retreats for ascetics.
Over the next 300 years, between 900 and 1200 AD, the Khmer Empire produced architectural masterpieces known as Angkor. Most are concentrated in an area approximately 15 miles (24 km) east to west and 5 miles (8.0 km) north to south. The Angkor Archaeological Park, which administers the area, includes sites as far away as Kbal Spean, about 30 miles (48 km) to the north. Around 72 major temples or other buildings are found within this area, and the remains of several hundred additional minor temple sites are scattered throughout the landscape beyond.
Because of the low-density and dispersed nature of the medieval Khmer settlement pattern, Angkor lacks a formal boundary, and its extent is therefore difficult to determine. However, a specific area of at least 1,000 km2 (390 sq mi) beyond the major temples is defined by a complex system of infrastructure, including roads and canals that indicate a high degree of connectivity and functional integration with the urban core. In terms of spatial extent (although not in terms of population), this makes it the largest urban agglomeration in recorded history prior to the Industrial Revolution, easily surpassing the nearest claim by the Maya city of Tikal. At its peak, the city occupied an area greater than modern Paris, and its buildings use far more stone than all of the Egyptian structures combined.
Jayavarman VII
Following the death of Suryavarman around 1150 AD, the kingdom fell into a period of internal strife. Its neighbors to the east, the Cham of what is present-day southern Vietnam, took advantage of the situation in 1177 to launch a water-borne invasion up the Mekong River and across Tonlé Sap. The Cham forces were successful in sacking the Khmer capital of Yasodharapura and killed the reigning king. However, a Khmer prince who was to become King Jayavarman VII rallied his people and defeated the Cham in battles on the lake and on the land. In 1181, Jayavarman assumed the throne. He was to be the greatest of the Angkorian kings.
Over the ruins of Yasodharapura, Jayavarman constructed the walled city of Angkor Thom, as well as its geographic and spiritual center, the temple known as the Bayon. Bas-reliefs at the Bayon depict not only the king's battles with the Cham, but also scenes from the life of Khmer villagers and courtiers. Jayavarman oversaw the period of Angkor's most prolific construction, which included building the well-known temples of Ta Prohm and Preah Khan, dedicating them to his parents.
This massive program of construction coincided with a transition in the state religion from Hinduism to Mahayana Buddhism, since Jayavarman himself had adopted the latter as his personal faith. During Jayavarman's reign, Hindu temples were altered to display images of the Buddha, and Angkor Wat briefly became a Buddhist shrine. Following his death, the revival of Hinduism as the state religion included a large-scale campaign of desecrating Buddhist images, and continued until Theravada Buddhism became established as the land's dominant religion from the 14th century.
Zhou Daguan
The year 1296 marked the arrival at Angkor of the Chinese diplomat Zhou Daguan representing the Yuan dynasty. Zhou's one-year sojourn in the Khmer capital during the reign of King Indravarman III is historically significant, because he penned a still-surviving account, The Customs of Cambodia, of approximately forty pages detailing his observations of Khmer society. Some of the topics he addressed in the account were religion, justice, kingship, societal norms, agriculture, slavery, birds, vegetables, bathing, clothing, tools, draft animals, and commerce.
In one passage, he described a royal procession consisting of soldiers, numerous servant women and concubines, ministers and princes, and finally, "the sovereign, standing on an elephant, holding his sacred sword in his hand." Together with the inscriptions that have been found on Angkorian stelae, temples and other monuments, and with the bas-reliefs at the Bayon and Angkor Wat, Zhou's journal is an important source of information about everyday life at Angkor.