| Title | Angkor Wat, view of south wing of western gallery from the western causeway |  |
| Description | Angkor Wat is the best known and largest of all the monuments from the Angkorian period (9th-14th centuries). Suryavarman II (1113-c.1150) built Angkor Wat in the first half of the twelfth century as his state temple. Based on the temple’s orientation towards the west, scholars agree that it was likely dedicated to Visnu. The temple complex is delimited by its surrounding moats (more than 3 miles or 4.82 kilometers in circumference), which places it among the world’s largest religious sites with an area of 494 acres (200 hectares). Aside from its monumental scale, Angkor Wat is renowned for its architectural complexity, and it features cruciform terraces, naga balustrades, and elaborately carved pediments and columns. The monument is symbolic of the cosmic temple mountain, or Mount Meru, and consists of a quincunx pyramid design with concentric galleries. These galleries contain approximately 600 meters (1970 feet) of narrative bas-reliefs illustrating scenes from the Ramayana and Mahabharata epics, and nearly 2000 depictions of Apsaras. After the movement of the capital to around Phnom Penh in the fifteenth century, the complex was transformed into a Buddhist worship place. Henri Mouhot "rediscovered" the site in 1860 and French archaeologists began excavation and restoration projects in 1901. | |
| Description | Location : Siem Reap. | |
| Description | Source : Rooney, Dawn. Angkor: An Introduction. Hong Kong: Odyssey Guides, 2005. | |
| Description | This item digitized and made available online with funds provided by United States Department of Education, TICFIA (Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information) Grant P337A05006. | |
| Publisher | Northern Illinois University Libraries - Southeast Asia Digital Library (http://sea.lib.niu.edu) | |
| Publisher | Then and Now: Historical Photographs of Cambodia, Northern Illinois University. | |
| Contributor | Northern Illinois University. | |
| Date | 2007-06-14 | |
| Type | Photograph | |
| Identifier | SEAImages:SRAW19 | |
| Source | Then and Now: Historical Photographs of Cambodia | |
| Coverage | Cambodia | |
| Rights | Northern Illinois University | |
