Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Photo Gallery: Angkor's Ancient Enormity Uncovered


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Video: Angkor Temples Preserve Cambodia's Past (May 15, 2006)
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Suburbia in 13th-century century Angkor was a low-density place, with houses perched on mounds to protect the structures from seasonal floods.
Small artificial ponds stored water that could be use to flood rice paddies.

Neighborhood temples, surrounded by miniature moats, echoed the structure of Angkor Wat.

As Angkor's population expanded, it would have needed to clear forest to create more neighborhoods like this one. Archaeologists speculate that resulting floods and erosion ruined the waterworks the city depended on, possibly leading to its collapse.

Photo Gallery: Angkor's Ancient Enormity Uncovered


Aerial photos show some of the more visible remnants of Angkor's urban sprawl. Clockwise from top left: household ponds, canals, smaller “village” temples, and one-sided embankments that both channeled water and served as roadways.
Archaeologists matched these recognizable features to shapes shown by radar. They discovered structures in more remote regions that are covered by forest or made hazardous by land mines left over from Cambodia's wars

Photo Gallery: Angkor's Ancient Enormity Uncovered


Khmer warriors of Angkor's heyday rode elephants into battle, as seen in this computer illustration based on relief sculptures at an Angkor temple.
Although the city thrived for six centuries, Angkor was no stranger to strife.

A Thai royal document, for example, records the invasion and sacking of the city in the mid-1400s. Modern looting still threatens Angkor temples, many of which are beyond the UN World Heritage site boundaries that protect Angkor Wat. (See pictures of new World Heritage sites named in 2007.)

Photo Gallery: Angkor's Ancient Enormity Uncovered


computer illustration depicts Angkor Wat at its 13th-century peak. At the time, wooden villages surrounded the temple complex's then gilded towers.
Pollen found in the ruins suggests that blooming lotuses floated in the moat, which was thought to wash away the sins of those who crossed over the stone causeway.

Tropical vines, trees, and roots nearly reclaimed Angkor Wat in the centuries after the city's demise, although local people continued to visit the sacred site.

Photo Gallery: Angkor's Ancient Enormity Uncovered


An aerial radar survey (bottom) has revealed for the first time the extent of the ancient urban sprawl that surrounded central Angkor. The radar readings—plus ground surveys and images snapped by satellites, planes, and a NASA space shuttle—allowed archaeologists to create a groundbreaking new map of greater Angkor.
The radar results provided the highest-resolution images yet of the region. The sharp images allowed the team to identify small features like household ponds and low mounds that channeled water into agricultural fields. The images also show breaks in canals, which may shed light on how and when Angkor's waterworks failed.

Photo Gallery: Angkor's Ancient Enormity Uncovered


August 13, 2007—The largest religious complex in the world, Cambodia's Angkor Wat (pictured) is the jewel in the vast Angkor archaeological site.
The lost city was an ancient wonder of urban sprawl, according to a new survey that uncovered 74 temples and more than a thousand artificial ponds in Angkor's "suburbs."

The Khmer Empire's King Suryavarman II built Angkor Wat between A.D. 1113 and 1150 to honor the Hindu god Vishnu. Carved from soft sandstone, the temple complex's statues crumbled and toppled in the wake of Angkor's decline. Still guarded by a 4-mile (6.4-kilometer) moat, the restored Angkor Wat today fuels a booming tourist trade at the modern town of Siem Reap.

World Bank Grants $70M in Cambodia Aid

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - The World Bank said Tuesday it will give US$70 million (euro51.3 million) to Cambodia to help reduce its widespread poverty in a package that includes a plan to import cheap electricity from the country's neighbors.

Some US$18.5 million (euro13.5 million) will be used to build cross-border transmission lines to Laos and Vietnam to import electricity to Cambodia, the bank said in a statement Tuesday. The project is expected to be completed by August 2011, it said.

The new power lines will connect Kampong Cham province in the east with Vietnam, and Stung Treng province in the northeast with Laos, the bank said in June. The two provinces now have some of highest electricity rates in the world.

Customers in the provinces pay up to US$.30 (euro.22) per kilowatt-hour of electricity. The tariffs are expected to drop to between US$.10 (euro.07) to US$.15 (euro.11) per kilowatt-hour once the transmission lines are operational, the bank said.

The remaining money in the aid package will be used for projects supporting development of the private sector, public financial management, good governance, natural resource management and decentralization of local government, the statement said.

The funds will help "build stronger institutions of governance that will lead to higher growth and faster poverty reduction," Ian Porter, the bank's country director for Cambodia, said in the statement.

Cambodia has achieved double-digit economic growth during the last three years but still remains one of the world's poorest nations.

Donors in June pledged US$689 million (euro501 million) in aid for Cambodia after rapping the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen for failure to combat corruption. The World Bank statement did not say whether the new aid is part of the earlier pledge.

Fraud and corruption in the procurement process led the World Bank in June 2006 to freeze US$7.6 million (euro5.6 million) in funding for several projects in Cambodia. Hun Sen angrily said there was no proof of wrongdoing.

Early this year, the bank lifted the suspensions after it agreed with the government on new frameworks for improving implementation of the projects.


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