Secrets of ancient Angkor

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

How this capital of the mighty and mysterious Khmer state perished, no one knows. According to one of the legends, the son of one of the priests dared to object to the cruel emperor, and he ordered to drown the impudent one in the Tonle Sap Lake. But as soon as the waters closed over the youth's head, the angry gods punished the lord. The lake overflowed its shores and flooded Angkor, washing away both the despot and all his subjects from the face of the earth.

Historians believe that in 1431 the city was ravaged by Siamese troops who came from the north, who captured and plundered Angkor. One way or another, the once rich and flourishing Angkor became empty overnight. Majestic palaces and temples have swallowed up the impenetrable jungle, and snakes and lizards have become their inhabitants. And every year fewer and fewer people remained on Earth who remembered the great capital. Its existence has become a legend. Only in 1861 did Europe learn about the rich culture of the distant country of Cambodia. It was then that the French traveler Henri Mouault accidentally discovered architectural ensembles of extraordinary beauty among the dense thickets of banyan trees.

Muo left a note in his diaries: “The monuments of building art that I have seen are huge in size and, in my opinion, are an example of the highest level in comparison with any monuments that have survived from ancient times. I have never felt so happy as I do now. Even if I knew that I would have to die, I would never trade this life for the pleasures and comforts of the civilized world. Less than a few months after returning from the abandoned city, Muo, who was distinguished by enviable health, suddenly died of malaria. Protected places took revenge on the man who revealed this amazing ghost of the past centuries to the whole world. True, Europeans have been here before. French missionary Charles-Emile Buyevo had visited Angkor five years earlier and described his observations in two books. Moreover, 300 years before Muo, the Portuguese visited here: the merchant Diogo do Couto, whose travel notes were published in 1550, and the monk Antonio da Magdalena.

The latter, in 1586, described the masterpiece of Indochina as follows: “Oh, this is such an unusual structure that it is impossible to describe it with a pen! There is nothing like this in the world, it was probably built by the gods themselves! The construction of the city began at the beginning of the 9th century, during the reign of King Jayavarman VII, when the Khmer civilization reached its peak. Not only majestic temples and palaces appeared here, but also roads, irrigation canals, hospitals.

For 400 years, each of the successive rulers strove to build their own temple-tomb at the intersection of streets and canals. This is how a gigantic temple complex arose, united by roads, canals, bridges into a kind of ancient metropolis. The size of Angkor is amazing: it stretches 24 km from west to east and 8 km from north to south. During the heyday of the empire, more than a million people lived in it, which is more than any European city of that time.

In the center of Angkor rises the temple of the god Vishnu, the most grandiose religious building in the world - Angkor Wat ("temple city" in Khmer). The sanctuary is located on a platform 13 m high. That, in turn, rests on another platform, at the corners of which there are four towers, connected by galleries to each other and to the central temple, the tower of which rises 65 m. This stone ensemble, richly decorated with carvings and bas-reliefs on mythological themes, is surrounded by two rows of walls with turrets and gates. The total area of Angkor Wat reaches 200 hectares.

The construction of the pearl of Angkor lasted 40 years, it was erected by tens of thousands of craftsmen, and the work was carried out simultaneously from all four sides. Along with the temple, the skill of the architects also grew. The higher he soared to the sky, the more complex the patterns became, the smoother the masonry and the more refined the sculptures.

The temple is surrounded by a 190 m wide moat filled with water and a high wall. But the fence hides only the lower tier of the structure. Its main decoration is the towers, similar to lotus buds, which are visible from afar. The walls of the temple are covered with skillful carvings, which also keep amazing secrets. Among others, there you can see quite realistic images of mythical griffins, basilisks, as well as … a stegosaurus and a hyracodont (the ancestor of the rhinoceros extinct 20 million years ago).

But more often than others there are figures of apsaras - dancer goddesses. There are thousands of them here, and none is like the other. The most complex bas-reliefs recreated the most important episodes of the Battle of Kurukshetra described in the Mahabharata, scenes from the Ramayana and sketches from the life of the ruler Suryavarman II. The emperor, who commanded to build a magnificent temple, is not only depicted on the walls - his ashes found eternal peace here. Legends say that along with the body of the ruler in the temple, the soul of the empire died out.

After his death, the great state collapsed and never again achieved such power. It's amazing how in the X century. the Khmers were able to erect such a gigantic structure. The most complex three-level structure, like an anthill, is all permeated with secret passages, stairs and cell-cells. Galleries adorned with giant bas-reliefs and statues run along each level. Fortunately, there is a lot of stone here, and it lies in layers in rounded hills with a height of 70-80 m. The sandstone was beautiful and soft, easily inferior to adze and chisel.

The building and giant sculptures of the gods are made from separate blocks. In some structures, stone blocks are interconnected by grooves cut out on them, in others they are fastened with a binder. It is believed to have been prepared from rice water mixed with palm juice and egg white. This mass bound the sandstone so firmly that attempts to separate such blocks during the restoration of the temples were unsuccessful. And here's another mystery: for some reason, the Khmers, who perfectly worked stone, probably built not only huts, but also palaces of the nobility from simple wood.

This alone can explain that, despite the good preservation of religious and fortifications, there is no residential development in Angkor. After all, the population of Angkor Wat alone is estimated by scientists at half a million people, and Khmer temples were not even intended for gatherings of believers. They were the dwelling place of the gods, and access to their central buildings was open exclusively to representatives of the religious and political elite. One of the mysteries of Angkor Wat is the location of the entrance to the temple.

Unlike other temples of Angkor, the entrance to which is in the east, Angkor Wat can only be accessed from the west. But Angkor's biggest secret is that the entire ancient city is a giant esoteric map. For example, the duration of the four Yugas (the great world eras of Hindu philosophy and cosmology) - Krita Yuga, Treta Yuga, Avapara Yuga and Kali Yuga - are respectively 1,728,000, 1,296,000, 864,000 and 432,000 years. In Angkor Wat, the length of the main sections of the road is exactly 1728, 1296, 864 and 432 khat (a measure of length among the ancient Khmers):

If you look at Angkor from above, it turns out that it is a kind of map of the starry sky: the structure of the Angkor Thom temple complex reproduces the position of the stars of the constellation of the Dragon at dawn on the day of the vernal equinox in 10,500 BC. e. The analogue of the Dragon's heart on earth is the Bayon Temple, which the French archaeologist Georges Kodey called the mystical center of the Khmer Empire. And on the step pyramid-temple of Phnom Bakeng, which is also part of the temple complex, it is written that its purpose is to symbolize the movement of the stars with its stones.

However, the whole of Angkor consists of secrets and mysteries. Its researchers have so far mainly dealt with the outer side of the gigantic city-temple, sometimes literally recapturing it brick by brick from the impenetrable forest. Its mysterious dungeons have not been explored at all. Only a select few were allowed to the lower levels of the giant temple city, and even the king could not enter.

During the reign of Pol Pot, there were legends about a secret team organized by the dictator to find the untold treasures of the Khmer kings for the needs of Democratic Kampuchea. They went down to one of the wells, located in the room of the lower tier, but were terribly frightened by something and died of a heart attack immediately after rising to the surface. When this sad story was repeated for the hundredth time, the well was blown up and covered with stones. But the search for treasures did not stop.

Another legend tells how, 20 years later, a group of European enthusiasts arrived in Cambodia with the most modern equipment. The next morning, the caretakers of the complex discovered those who remained on the surface. They were dead, and the arriving doctor declared death from old age. The rope that other researchers used to descend into the well was cut, and all electronic equipment was out of order. No one dared to go after them, and the well was closed with a huge slab …