Qualla: Angkor

Angkor: Introduction

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit cloud.shepherd, CC BY 2.0. A Chinese diplomat named Zhou Daguan arrived at Angkor in 1296 and wrote down everything he saw. He described the golden towers of the royal palace, the Buddhist monks in yellow robes, the Brahmin officials, the markets teeming with fish and rice, the elaborate procession of the king on his golden palanquin escorted by cavalry and elephants. What Zhou was witnessing, though he could not have known it, was a civilization approaching its end. Within 135 years, Ayutthaya invaders would sack the city, and its population would scatter southward toward what would eventually become Phnom Penh. The jungle would close over the temples. But in 1296, Angkor was still magnificent -- a hydraulic metropolis covering more than 1,000 square kilometers, fed by a water management system that NASA radar imaging would later reveal to be larger than modern Los Angeles.

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Image: cloud.shepherd | CC BY 2.0

Angkor: The King Who Made Himself a God

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Helt, CC BY-SA 3.0. Angkor's story begins in 802 AD, on a mountain called Mahendraparvata in what are now the Kulen hills. There, a prince named Jayavarman II performed a Hindu consecration ritual and declared himself chakravartin -- universal monarch -- and devaraja, god-king. He had already spent ...

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Image: Helt | CC BY-SA 3.0

Angkor: A Warrior on an Elephant

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mariam.alshamsi, CC0. The Angkorian period's most ambitious builder arrived on the throne through violence. According to inscriptions, Suryavarman II leapt onto his rival's war elephant during combat and killed the prince in single combat, like the mythical bird-man Garuda slaying a serpent. After con...

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Image: Mariam.alshamsi | CC0

Angkor: The Last Great King

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dmitry A. Mottl, CC BY-SA 4.0. From that disaster emerged Jayavarman VII, who rallied the Khmer and drove out the Cham in battles on both lake and land. Assuming the throne in 1181, he became arguably the greatest of all Angkorian rulers -- and the last to build on a monumental scale. Over the ruins of Yasodha...

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Image: Dmitry A. Mottl | CC BY-SA 4.0

Angkor: Death by Water

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Liftold at vi.wikipedia, Public domain. The Khmer empire depended on water -- capturing monsoon rains in massive reservoirs, then distributing it through canals to irrigate rice paddies during the dry months. The West Baray alone measured eight kilometers by two. But research by the Greater Angkor Project has revealed ...

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Image: Liftold at vi.wikipedia | Public domain

Angkor: What the Jungle Kept

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Wilmot from Wimbledon, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0. After 1431, nearly all of Angkor was abandoned. Only Angkor Wat survived as an active shrine, maintained by Buddhist monks. The rest vanished under forest canopy, known to local farmers but invisible to the wider world. French explorers arrived in the 1860s and described what the...

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Image: David Wilmot from Wimbledon, United Kingdom | CC BY 2.0