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By studying what was once an iron smelting site in Cambodia, archaeologists and earth scientists unveiled a sharp change in Earth’s geomagnetic field direction and strength that occurred about 10 centuries ago. The new data, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, marks the first archaeomagnetism records from southeastern Asia. The researchers believe it will fill gaps in scientists’ understanding of Earth’s past magnetism, illuminating how the planet’s protective sheath may change in the future... Tauxe worked with Mitch Hendrickson, an archaeologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who was excavating an iron-smelting...

Of all the numerals, "0" -- alone in green on the roulette wheel -- is most significant. Unique in representing absolute nothingness, its role as a placeholder gives our number system its power. It enables the numerals to cycle, acquiring different meanings in different locations (compare 3,000,000 and 30). With the exception of the Mayan system, whose zero glyph never left the Americas, ours is the only one known to have a numeral for zero. Babylonians had a mark for nothingness, say some accounts, but treated it primarily as punctuation. Romans and Egyptians had no such numeral either... Found on...

The massive structure - almost a mile long - contains a spiral design, with several rectangular spirals that form a giant structure, archaeologists say. "This structure, which has dimensions of more than 1,500 m × 600 m (about 1 mile by 1,970 feet) is the most striking discovery associated with Angkor Wat to date. Its function remains unknown and, as yet, it has no known equivalent in the Angkorian world," Roland Fletcher, a University of Sydney professor, said in a statement put out by the university. Today, the spiral structure is hard to make out on the ground, having been...

Mary Beth Day, University of Cambridge Bayon temple, constructed by Angkorian King Jayavarman VII in the late 12th century. The faces may be representations of Buddha, the bodhisattva Lokesvara, Jayavarman VII, or a combination. The ancient city of Angkor — the most famous monument of which is the breathtaking ruined temple of Angkor Wat — might have collapsed due to valiant but ultimately failed efforts to battle drought, scientists find. The great city of Angkor in Cambodia, first established in the ninth century, was the capital of the Khmer Empire, the major player in southeast Asia for nearly five centuries....

Long-lost paintings have been discovered on the walls of Cambodia's ancient Angkor Wat temple, thanks to the keen observations of an Australian National University (ANU) researcher. The ancient paintings date back almost 500 years and depict deities, animals, boats and the temple itself, giving historians a new understanding of life in a relatively unknown period of Cambodia's history. Rock art researcher Noel Hidalgo Tan discovered the hidden images while working as a volunteer at an archaeological excavation in Angkor Wat during a university break in 2010... It was only when Tan enhanced the images on his computer that the paintings...

Japan team finds ancient Cambodian water siteTuesday, Jan. 22, 2008 SNAY VILLAGE, Cambodia (Kyodo) Japanese archaeologists said Monday they have found a man-made water channel in northwest Cambodia used for rituals as far back as the first century. The archaeologists said they discovered sacred mounds or altars at the ruins in Snay village in Banteay Meanchey Province under a two-year project that began last January. "Before, it was said that Khmer civilization started from the seventh to ninth century AD, but based on our research here, Khmer civilization went back to the first century AD," said Yoshinori Yasuda, a professor...

Australian archaeologists using complex radar and satellite technology to map the medieval city of Angkor have discovered more than 70 new temples scattered across a vast area of farmland and forests in north-west Cambodia. University of Sydney archaeologist Damian Evans said, "It's huge. We've mapped a massive settlement stretching well beyond the main temples of the World Heritage tourist area in Siem Reap. "We've found the city was roughly five times bigger than previously thought." The newly discovered ruins of the ancient Khmer empire metropolis sprawl across 1000sqkm "about 20km in every direction" outside the United Nations listed World Heritage...

Sprawling Angkor Brought Down By Overpopulation, Study Suggests Susan Brown for National Geographic News August 13, 2007 Cambodia's long-lost temple complex of Angkor is the world's largest known preindustrial settlement, reveals a new radar study that found 74 new temples and more than a thousand manmade ponds at the site. But urban sprawl and its associated environmental devastation may have led to the collapse of the kingdom, which includes the renowned temple of Angkor Wat, the study suggests. Ever since the late 16th century, when Portuguese traders spied the towers of the monument poking through a dense canopy of trees,...

CHICAGO (AFP) - Archaeologists using radar imagery have shown that an ancient Cambodian settlement centered on the celebrated temple of Angkor Wat was far more extensive than previously thought, a study released Monday said. The medieval settlement surrounding Angkor, the one-time capital of the illustrious Khmer empire which flourished between the ninth and 14th centuries, covered a 3,000 square kilometer area (1,158 square miles). The urban complex was at least three times larger than archaeologists had previously suspected and easily the largest pre-industrial urban area of its kind, eclipsing comparable developments such as Tikal a Classic Maya "city" in Guatemala....

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...

In the year 802 C.E., the founder of the medieval Khmer empire, Jayavarman II, anointed himself "king of the world." In laying claim to such a grandiose title, he was a little ahead of his time: It would be another few centuries before the Khmers built Earth's largest religious monument, Angkor Wat, the crowning glory of a kingdom that stood in what is today northwestern Cambodia. But Jayavarman II had good reason to believe that his nascent kingdom, in the sacred Kulen hills northeast of Angkor, was a record-holder. Airborne laser scanning technology, or LiDAR, has revealed the imprint of...

Jungle-Covered Ruins May Hold Surprising Hints by Brian Thomas, M.S. The ancient and elaborate temple at Angkor Wat is not the only interesting site to see when visiting Cambodia. Archaeologists have been discovering hundreds of temples, many still buried beneath thick jungle growth, strewn across the whole surrounding area. A picture is emerging of buildings that connected a thriving society across a broad region. Could soon-to-be uncovered stone carvings somehow intersect with biblical history? Australian archaeologist Damian Evans employed "lidar" technology to find new temples far faster than the old way—that of hacking through jungle and hoping to hit some...

Archaeologists in Cambodia have found multiple, previously undocumented medieval cities not far from the ancient temple city of Angkor Wat, the Guardian can reveal, in groundbreaking discoveries that promise to upend key assumptions about south-east Asia’s history. The Australian archaeologist Dr Damian Evans, whose findings will be published in the Journal of Archaeological Science on Monday, will announce that cutting-edge airborne laser scanning technology has revealed multiple cities between 900 and 1,400 years old beneath the tropical forest floor, some of which rival the size of Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh.

Jean-Baptiste Chevance senses that we’re closing in on our target. Paused in a jungle clearing in northwestern Cambodia, the French archaeologist studies his GPS and mops the sweat from his forehead with a bandanna. The temperature is pushing 95, and the equatorial sun beats down through the forest canopy. For two hours, Chevance, known to everyone as JB, has been leading me, along with a two-man Cambodian research team, on a grueling trek. We’ve ripped our arms and faces on six-foot shrubs studded with thorns, been savaged by red biting ants, and stumbled over vines that stretch at ankle height...

Skulls and other human bones poke from large ceramic jars at Khnorng Sroal, one of the newly dated mountainside burials in southwestern Cambodia's Cardamom Mountains. The bones were placed in the 20-inch-tall (50-centimeter-tall) body jars only after the bodies had decomposed or had been picked clean by scavenging animals, according to the study, which is published in the latest issue of the journal Radiocarbon. "The Cardamom highlanders may have used some form of exposure of the body to de-flesh the bones, like the 'sky burials' known in other cultures," study leader Beavan said. Placing the sky-high burials couldn't have been...

The researchers disovered at least 74 new temples The great medieval temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia was once at the centre of a sprawling urban settlement, according to a new, detailed map of the area.Using Nasa satellites, an international team have discovered at least 74 new temples and complex irrigation systems. The map, published in the journal PNAS, extends the known settlement by 1000 sq km, about the size of Los Angeles. Analysis also lends weight to the theory that Angkor's residents were architects of the city's demise. "The large-scale city engineered its own downfall by disrupting its...