Photo Gallery: Angkor's Ancient Enormity Uncovered

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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.