Saving Ancient Angkor From Modern Doomsday

SFGate ^

[blam]

Saving ancient Angkor from modern doomsday

Scientists warning on pumping water for tourist hotels

Ker Munthit, Associated Press

Sunday, February 17, 2008

(02-17) 04:00 PST Siem Reap, Cambodia -- By destroying vast tracts of forest to enlarge their farm land, inhabitants of the wondrous city of Angkor lit the fuse to an ecological time bomb that spelled doom for what was once the world's largest urban area.

So believe archaeologists engaged in groundbreaking research into the ancient civilization of Angkor.

And they are warning that history could repeat itself through reckless, headlong pursuit of dollars from tourists flocking to see Angkor's fabled monuments.

"It's just a weird cycle. It seems like Angkor is self-repeating itself," said Mitch Hendrickson, who recently led an excavation as part of research into Angkor as a human settlement.

Conservationists have long expressed concerns about the state of the monuments, especially the stress from the tourist invasion. They also say the uncontrolled pumping of underground water to meet rising demand of hotels, guesthouses and residents in the adjoining town of Siem Reap may be destabilizing the earth beneath the centuries-old temples so much that they might sink and collapse.

"There's just so much building going on without any concern about the long term. Things are moving so fast in Siem Reap today that it's going to chew itself up very quickly and become unsustainable," said Hendrickson, an archaeologist from the University of Sydney, Australia.

From their city, Angkorian kings ruled over most of Southeast Asia during their pinnacle between the 9th and 14th centuries, overseeing construction of architectural stone marvels, including Angkor Wat, regarded as a marvel of religious architecture.

While the 1431 invasion from what is now Thailand has long been regarded as a major cause of Angkor's fall, archaeologists from

[blam]

GGG Ping.

[Publius6961]

Yep, the ancient greedy dead people should be better regarded than the (much more numerous) current live ones.
The doofuses picked the wrong site to build their now-dead city. Too bad.

Ignorance is no excuse.

Socialist ignorant idiots are at work in this article.

[Red_Devil 232]

Where Jon (I am a Vietnam Vet) Kerry met with Yul Brynner ... I mean Marlon Brando on his excursion into Cambodia?

[JimSEA]

While I normally support development and jobs, in this case, the resort development folks actually are close to killing the goose, so as to say.

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

Angkor’s away.

[colorado tanker]

This strikes me as a very agenda-driven article. The angkorians went to the trouble to build a huge canal and reservoir network for the heck of it, just to demonstrate “power”?? Apply Occam’s razor, not the environmentalists’ butter knife.