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Angkor - 2003
Angkor - 2003
Jacek Pałkiewicz2006-06-25 13:29:32
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above looked like so many trinkets, like little votive gifts to the gods deposited in the green vastness of the jungle. Gifts that must have pleased the gods indeed, considering the superhuman efforts made by these simple men.
I have to admit that I, too, was quite surprised by such grandeur. In those times Angkor must have been a boundless rice field. This is why it managed to become so strong economically and militarily, and why it was able to finance the construction of these huge monuments. The intensive cultivation of rice required hundreds of canals, besides dikes and “barays”. These immense reserves of water were a way of solving the problem of the excess resulting from the rainy season, and they were subsequently used during the dry season or drought. The barays, the strong point of this ingenious system, were not dug out of the earth but built, thanks to dikes and embankments, over the surrounding plain. In case of need, without resorting to pumping, one could simply open the dikes, let the water flow into the canals and irrigate the whole region - which was divided into regular and connected plots of land - by simply exploiting the force of gravity.
The West Baray alone could hold 30 million cubic metres of water and its dimensions were impressive: 8 kilometres by 2.2. The East Baray was not much smaller: it took two thousand workers five years to build it, removing more than 400 thousand tons of earth. The level of annual production achieved in those days was incredibly high: 30 quintals of rice for each hectare of land under cultivation, compared with the 15 of our day.
Well in view, illuminated in all its power majesty, was the central temple, the colossal Bayon. Bringing into focus the whole architectonic mountain, a riotous jumble of stone, took me a few seconds, because it looked like a formidable chain of mountains struck by a devastating earthquake. In the original frenzy of building, architecture, statues and ornamentation
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See photographs from:
Cambodia Gallery
