The Angkorian Empire - DIscovery

Have you heard of the Angkorian Empire, if you haven't, then you would definitely have some clue about Angkor Wat, if not even that, then you shouldn't read this anymore. Blunt, I know, but that's the way I would I will prefer it. But if you still want to read, then go on, this is everyone's right. 

Angkor Wat

The Angkorian Empire is a very old but advanced civilisation, like the many others you might have heard of; the Harrapans, the Egyptians. What did they do, the Egyptians made huge pyramids while the Harrapans made extensively planned and structured metropolises. Well, if you think of it, the Khmer Civilisation could be said as the combination of those two great societies as during the Khmer Civilisation, one of the many architectural marvels of the world were made, the ancient Hindu temples in the jungles of Cambodia and on the other hand, they also planned their cities meticulously and decided exactly how big roads would be required, how much water would be required and how to meet these requirements. 

Most of this great empire was lost to mankind in the dense jungles of Cambodia, if you would ask a person what was Cambodia, he would say it was a forest area in Asia, but now most people would know about the great architectural marvels of Angkor, most of all Angkor Wat. 

Many people believe that the Angkor temples were discovered after Henri Mouhot discovered the Ankgor Wat temple. These temples were never truly lost, the Khmer people knew of their location and existence of the entire complex of temples, and even several Europians like a Portuguese friar, Antonio da Madalena was the first European to visit the site in the sixteenth century. By the seventeenth century also, Angkor wasn't fully abandoned.

The temples buried in dense forests being conserved

After Mr. Henri, the Europeans had many expeditions in these forests for re-discovering the great empire lost in the growth of forests, soon enough Angkor gained popularity in Europe. This eventually led to a long restoration process by the French. At first it was thought that it was just a cluster of temples, but as temples and remains of reservoirs were discovered, people found out that this was once a great metropolis.

There was the Cambodia Civil War, which entirely stopped this restoration work but after the war, this effort has been coordinated by India, Germany, Japan and UNESCO. Under this project many of the temples have been taken apart stone by stone and re-assembled on more strong foundations like concrete. It has been tedious work and is still ongoing to preserve this marvel of architecture: Angkor. 

Angkor in all its glory