The assortment of crumbling sandstone temples, palaces and monuments of Angkor Thom covers nine square kilometres of jungle. Its 12th century founder, the king of the Khmer empire, had a romantic attachment to beautiful architecture and built profusely during his reign, focusing the main body of construction on his home and capital Angkor Thom, which translates to ’great city’.

The scale is large, huge heads and giant monsters decorate and protect the city. On one of the ruins there is what appears to be a dinosaur carved amongst familiar modern animals. The main structure that remains is a huge pyramidal Hindu temple surrounded by a vast temple complex. Eight metre high walls protect much of the city and all roads lead to the centre Bayan. A canal system was part of the original design, but like many of the secular and non palatial buildings it has been grown over with forest.

Angkor Thom remained the capital until it was abandoned some time before 1609, for some reason any repair work on the city was done in inferior materials and these sections were the first to crumble. When it was discovered by Europeans, who initially thought it was built by the Romans. The whole city was originally surrounded by a 300 foot wide moat filled with crocodiles.

Written by  World Reviewer Staff.

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