Khmer Civilisation: Vast Medieval Cities Hidden in Jungle

Angkor Archaeological Park, a Unesco World Heritage Site,
stretches over 400 square kilometres and is home
to Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument in
the world which appears on the Cambodian flag.

Cambodian archeologists could not find them, but cutting-edge laser technology was used by French explorers to discover a number of new sites near Angkor Wat (Lara Dunston, "Revealed: Cambodia's vast medieval cities hidden beneath the jungle", the Guardian 11 June 2016; Katie Forster, "Archaeologists in Cambodia find vast medieval cities hidden under jungle" Independent 12 Jun 2016)

Laser technology has been used by archaeologists in Cambodia to reveal multiple vast medieval cities buried under the tropical forest floor – some of them believed to be larger than the country’s capital Phnom Penh. Researchers believe the metropolises are between 900 and 1,400 years old and lie not far from Angkor Wat, an ancient temple complex in north east Cambodia. Dr Damian Evans, an Australian archaeologist funded by the EU, will publish these findings in the Journal of Archaeological Science on Monday, according to The Guardian.  Further investigation into these discoveries could result in groundbreaking developments in our understanding of south east Asian history, said Dr Evans. “We have entire cities discovered beneath the forest that no one knew were there,” he said. One of the cities whose existence has been revealed through analysis of data collected in a 2015 aerial study – the most extensive of its kind covering 734 square miles – is located at Preah Khan of Kompong Svay, an archaeological site about which, until now, relatively little has been known.

An elephant statue in Sra Damrei, part of Cambodia's 'Lost City'
of Mahendraparvata, where a vast city has been discovered
under the forest floor (Getty Images)

In a similar study in 2012, Dr Evans and his team uncovered part of the ‘lost city’ of Mahendraparvata on Phnom Kulen.  Now they have found evidence of an even bigger area which was once densely inhabited – and could form part of the largest empire on earth at the time, some experts have said.

“This time we got the whole deal and it’s big, the size of Phnom Penh big,” said Dr Evans. “Our coverage of the post-Angkorian capitals also provides some fascinating new insights on the ‘collapse’ of Angkor. “There’s an idea that somehow the Thais invaded and everyone fled down south – that didn’t happen, there are no cities [revealed by the aerial survey] that they fled to. It calls into question the whole notion of an Angkorian collapse." [...] Dr Evans, a fellow at École Française d’Extrême-Orient in Siem Reap, used cutting-edge light detection technology known as lidar to conduct his research in the region. He used lidar scanners to fire lasers to the ground from a helicopter and measure how long it took for each pulse to bounce back, creating an extremely detailed 3D model of the Earth’s surface. The technology can penetrate dense forest canopies to detect buildings as well as the remains of roads, aqueducts, caves and manmade borders between different areas.  “I think that these airborne laser discoveries mark the greatest advance in the past 50 or even 100 years of our knowledge of Angkorian civilisation,” American archaeologist Michael Coe told The Guardian. “I saw Angkor for the first time in 1954, when I wondered at the magnificent temples, but there was nothing to tell us who had lived in the city, where they had lived, and how such an amazing culture was supported,” he said. The findings from this study combined with Dr Evans’s first lidar survey in the region in 2012 could challenge theories on the development and decline of the Khmer empire, which ruled over most of mainland south east Asia from around 802 AD.

The question remains of why archeologists were not able to find these ruins sooner. Here are some fine Khmer antiquities for sale.