A June 2013 UNESCO report on the
first “lidar” aerial laser survey of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, which exposes
topography under tree canopy, has revealed a mysterious geoglyph attached to
this great temple dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu.
The immense geoglyphic
relief area is exactly as wide from east to west as that defined by the outer
moat walls of Angkor Wat itself, and its length south to north matches that
between the temple’s walls. This
terraformed landscape has confounded the international archaeological team
involved.
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| Geoglyph Area (remains highlighted in red) |
An enhanced lidar image
clearly shows a very complex network of 6 rectilinear grids in a vast walled
enclosure adjacent to the south moat of Angkor Wat, later transected by a road
and creek floodway. The cryptic grid
patterns are formed by linear embankments over 10 metres wide with narrow
shallow continuous channels linking to holding reservoirs.
This discovery is bound
to attract great speculation from the metaphysical New Age set, those who study
the Peruvian Nazca Lines, because one coiled grid features an opposed pair of
labyrinthal spirals designed to be seen only from on high.
This geoglyph is like
nothing known on earth and looks like Vishnu himself stamped a printed
integrated circuit chipset onto this sacred ground. Given the scale, orientation and pattern there
can be little doubt about its spiritual link to the world’s largest and most
sacred Hindu temple. However, Roman and Cretan
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| Cretan Coin |
coins and pottery have been uncovered near SE Asian archaeological sites, and some of these ancient trade items featured labyrinths.
The discovery
effectively enlarges the overall temple complex designed for Khmer King
Suryavarman II in the 12th century.
Furthermore, the geometric garden's attachment to Angkor Wat certainly
suggests that he had royal engineers involved in the construction.
Labyrinths were used by
monks as pathways, one way in one out, for meditative garden journeys leading
to centredness. But we associate squared
cursive coils almost solely with Cretan or Roman labyrinths, which appeared on
their ceramics and coins.
Any practical
speculation about function leads directly to Chinese Gei Wei polyculture which
often employed linear embankment mounds and parallel channel ponds. Sustainable fish and plant system culture,
linked to raised beds of bamboo or mulberry, was perfected by the 12th century
and is still in evidence in SE Asia today.
In wetland areas mud
scraped from channel bottoms in the dry season would be applied as seasonal
fertilizer to the embankments. The banks
would get higher over decades, explaining how they reached 22 metres at Angkor,
with the troughs perhaps a metre or two lower rising all the same. The dry raised banks enabled the use of
ladders, required for picking mulberry leaves to feed to silkworms.
The grid channels and
ponds would fill naturally with the monsoon water but the Khmers seem to have
created an incredibly complex hydraulic management system, including pressure reservoirs,
to sustain a cross-seasonal garden. The
silk production cycle not coincidentally requires 56,700 kilos of mulberry to
produce its same weight in silkworm waste and waste water, which yields 2,700 kilos
of cocoons, 206 of raw silk and 2,300 kilos of fresh fish.
Shallow water channels
were stocked with freshwater fish species, molluscs and crustaceans that
survived in low oxygen levels, and these fed off silkworm waste and pupae
provided by the mulberry silk processing cycle.
Alternatively, some channels may have been drained to cultivate rice and
vegetables, as was the case with embankment mulberry culture in China on flat
plains.
This royal polyculture
garden at Angkor Wat would have ensured silk production and a ready supply of
fresh food for the court rulers, military generals and high priests. There is little refrigeration even today in
tropical SE Asia, and one can readily imagine the Angkor system holding live
carp and giant prawns offered as tribute by fishermen from the nearby great
lake of Tonle Sap.
Another possibility is
that the entire squared garden area was an artificial wetland or lake created
to sustain a floating or raised field garden.
Long straight bamboo rafts were initially placed in rows in lieu of
embankments, projecting into lakes, and these rafts topped with soil made ideal
vegetable growing platforms. Others may
have been established on pole and reed mats, or on raised rubble foundations,
similar to those in Mesoamerica at the time.
Archaeologists on the
ground will bear in mind other theories, salt production for example, given the
evaporation effect of the tropical dry season.
Wet salt from the coastal pans near Kampot could have been barged to the
site for secondary drying. There was no
salt available in the Angkor region and this extremely valuable commodity is
often listed in scripture as being donated to the temple.
Perhaps there was a
military aspect to the confusing labyrinths, given that any army approaching
from the south would have a hopeless task breaching the outer embankment,
marching around in circles, before being greeted by a moat.
It is best perhaps to imagine a 12th century royal silk garden, with endless embankments of mulberry trees, select workers filling tall woven baskets with leaves and fruit, boatmen sculling along canals trapping fish, gardeners tending vegetables, all working to a master design.
Today millions of
tourists are driven on tuk tuks and buses blithely through the middle of this
geoglyphic garden, along grand Vithei Charles De Gaulle, unaware that they are
passing through one the world’s newest great archaeological mysteries.
The garden remains a mystery to the guiding site archaeologist, Dr. Damian Evans, who noted in the Phnom Penh Post
recently that the terraform is self-contained and not linked to outer landscape
systems of water management or habitation.
Covering several square kilometers the site is bound to yield "an
explanation for these things that does not involve aliens". Don't hold
your breath. Here comes Erich Von
Daniken now with his high-flying bird men.
