Posted on 06/18/2013 11:17:16 AM PDT by Squawk 8888
SYDNEY, Australia — Airborne laser technology has uncovered a network of roadways and canals, illustrating a bustling ancient city linking Cambodia’s famed Angkor Wat temple complex.
The discovery was announced late Monday in a peer-reviewed paper released early by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The laser scanning revealed a previously undocumented formally planned urban landscape integrating the 1,200-year-old temples.
The Angkor temple complex, Cambodia’s top tourist destination and one of Asia’s most famous landmarks, was constructed in the 12th century during the mighty Khmer empire. Angkor Wat is a point of deep pride for Cambodians, appearing on the national flag, and was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Archaeologists had long suspected that the city of Mahendraparvata lay hidden beneath a canopy of dense vegetation atop Phnom Kulen mountain in Siem Reap province. But the airborne lasers produced the first detailed map of a vast cityscape, including highways and previously undiscovered temples.
“No one had ever mapped the city in any kind of detail before, and so it was a real revelation to see the city revealed in such clarity,” University of Sydney archaeologist Damian Evans, the study’s lead author, said by phone from Cambodia. “It’s really remarkable to see these traces of human activity still inscribed into the forest floor many, many centuries after the city ceased to function and was overgrown.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalpost.com ...
GGG ping.
Wat?!
Lol.
Wot’s Uh The Deal?
Note: this topic was posted 6/18/2013. Thanks Squawk 8888, sorry I missed your ping!
What the heck are the Aussies doing? Flying around Cambodia and shooting stuff up with lasers?
Second question:
Why don’t we have aircraft that can fly around and shoot stuff up with lasers?
Whatever happened to napalm and Agent Orange?
Been done and done.
We need new stuffs. Fancy high tech stuffs. Expensive fancy high tech stuffs.
Especially if I can manage to get in on the wheeling and dealing. I could use a few millions of dollars for a good, old school, no show job.
I’d even consider joining a union... as long as I didn’t have to pay dues.
Heh.
I tried hard to come up with a snappy snark as a comeback but every time I looked at your comment, and the pic therein, I couldn’t keep from chuckling.
Well played, sir. Well played.
My view is that the meat of the article is the phrase 12 th centuary
That makes Angkor Watt contemporary with Cahokia and Chaco
There were big doings world wide in that era
The difficulty with recreating what the great city looked like is that only temples and ceremonial sites were built of stone. Housing and shops, including the royal palace complex were built of wood and long ago disintegrated in the jungle. Judging by the impressive stone "porch" that fronted the palace, the complex must have been immense.
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