Phnom Penh, August 16
Development has always been a threat to heritage sites across the world. So is the case with Cambodia's Angkor temples. Uncontrolled development around Angkor temples poses a serious threat to one of the region's great wonders, said the archaeologists who this week revealed the full extent of the site.
Angkor was a "vast and populous network stretching far beyond the well known temples of the central archaeological park," said the Greater Angkor Project (GAP) at the University of Sydney on its website. "Delicate traces of that network remain on the surface even today and are of great archaeological significance, but are under serious threat from uncontrolled development in the Siem Reap area," the group warned.
The group on Monday published a paper saying that during its height of power between the ninth and 14th centuries, Angkor -- covering about 1,000 square-kilometres -- was "the most extensive city of its kind in the pre-industrial world."
Angkor was at least three times larger than archaeologists had previously suspected, eclipsing comparable developments such as Tikal, a Classic Maya "city" on the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico.
Using digital mapping to detail some 3,000 square-kilometres around the temples, the group found evidence of an urban centre supported by a complex series of canals and waterways that became too vast to manage.
Deforestation and erosion caused as the city extended its rice fields to feed its bloated population led to a collapse in infrastructure, and Angkor was eventually abandoned. |
