Friday, March 29, 2024
Contact    |    RSS icon Twitter icon Facebook icon  
Unexplained Mysteries
You are viewing: Home > News > Archaeology & History > News story
Welcome Guest ( Login or Register )  
All ▾
Search Submit

Archaeology & History

Ancient 'lost city' rediscovered in Cambodia

By T.K. Randall
October 20, 2019 · Comment icon 2 comments

The Khmer Empire built some truly impressive structures. Image Credit: CC BY 2.0 Arian Zwegers
Archaeologists have announced the discovery of the lost city of Mahendraparvata deep in the Cambodian jungle.
An early capital city of the Khmer Empire - a Hindu-Buddhist regime which thrived between the 9th and 15th centuries in Southeast Asia - Mahendraparvata had long been known to exist, but had proven notoriously difficult to locate due to the dense jungle foliage covering the ruins.

Now though, thanks to new scans of the Phnom Kulen plateau using LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), the whereabouts of this ancient lost city have finally been determined.

The hunt took over five years and involved an international team of researchers lead by Jean-Baptiste Chevance from the UK's Archaeology and Development Foundation.

"The mountainous region of Phnom Kulen has, to date, received strikingly little attention," their paper reads. "It is almost entirely missing from archaeological maps, except as a scatter of points denoting the remains of some brick temples."

Over time, the scans revealed the existence of an extensive urban network spanning 50 square km.
"Numerous other elements of the anthropogenic landscape connect to this broader network, suggesting the elaboration of an overall urban plan," the researchers wrote.

"Dams, reservoir walls and the enclosure walls of temples, neighborhoods and even the royal palace abut or coincide with the embanked linear features."

Despite its size however, the city is not thought to have lasted long - perhaps only a few decades.

It has been speculated that the challenging mountainous conditions may have been a major factor and that the Khmer Empire had instead favored the site of its new capital Angkor.

What's left now serves only as a humbling reminder of a culture long since lost.

Source: Science Alert | Comments (2)




Other news and articles
Recent comments on this story
Comment icon #1 Posted by MissJatti 5 years ago
What a wonderful Rediscovery
Comment icon #2 Posted by Jon the frog 4 years ago
So much still to discover, impressing!


Please Login or Register to post a comment.


Our new book is out now!
Book cover

The Unexplained Mysteries
Book of Weird News

 AVAILABLE NOW 

Take a walk on the weird side with this compilation of some of the weirdest stories ever to grace the pages of a newspaper.

Click here to learn more

We need your help!
Patreon logo

Support us on Patreon

 BONUS CONTENT 

For less than the cost of a cup of coffee, you can gain access to a wide range of exclusive perks including our popular 'Lost Ghost Stories' series.

Click here to learn more

Top 10 trending mysteries
Recent news and articles