Monday, February 23, 2009

One more look

The stele kiosk at the northeast Prasat Chrung
In a final look at my favoured Prasat Chrung, in the northeast corner of the walled city of Angkor Thom, I've read that the stele kiosk(s) were constructed after the death of Jayavarman VII to house the stelae - literally a long-list of names or descriptions inscribed onto stone slabs - which provided the foundation stones for the walled city and the huge moat surrounding it, as well as extolling the virtues of the king of kings. The walls themselves are 3.3 kilometres in length along each side and by now, I still hadn't reached halfway in my epic cycle ride around the walled embankment, as I continued to the North Gate of the city.
A solitary doorframe with a ruined pediment at the western end of the temple site
The southern false doorway of the main shrine with lintel, pediment and colonettes in situ
A pediment without its Buddha on a plinth and a kala lintel above the south-facing doorway
Two corner devata on the southern face of the main shrine at Prasat Chrung
The devata at the northeast shrine are definitely smaller and less decorated
The eastern doorway of the main shrine on the left and the stele kiosk on the right, unusually very close to each other

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Andy, as always, thanks again for sharing your traveling and site-seeing adventure at the ancient city of Angkor Thom. Looks to me like the this ancient Khmer city was so immense in size as I imagine its heyday. And thanks to an adventurous person like you, there are a lot more of Angkor to be discovered still. I guess, away from the more popular touristy sites, one can still find peace and quite in this vast ancient city, indeed. Thank you.

PS: I think Angkor was one of the largest civilization that man had even created on this planet, at least from the look of its ruins, vast indeed for such city made from stones. I guess it was comparable to any ancient city or civilization on the planet anywhere that the Khmer had created during the heydays.

February 24, 2009 1:22 AM  

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