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Drought Doomed Ancient City of Angkor

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  Quote tjadams Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Drought Doomed Ancient City of Angkor
    Posted: 04-Jan-2012 at 10:30

Drought Doomed Ancient City of Angkor

By Charles Choi

Published January 04, 2012

| LiveScience

The ancient city of Angkor — the most famous monument of which is the breathtaking ruined temple of Angkor Wat — might have collapsed due to valiant but ultimately failed efforts to battle drought, scientists find.

The great city of Angkor in Cambodia, first established in the ninth century, was the capital of the Khmer Empire, the major player in southeast Asia for nearly five centuries. It stretched over more than 385 square miles (1,000 square kilometers), making it the most extensive urban complex of the preindustrial world. In comparison, Philadelphia covers 135 square miles (350 sq. km), while Phoenix sprawls across more than 500 square miles (1,300 sq. km), not including the huge suburbs



Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/01/04/drought-led-to-demise-ancient-city-angkor/#ixzz1iVIgDvjs



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  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Jan-2012 at 21:33
Where did the people go after the city was abandoned? Did they create a new civilisation or revert to a more primitive state?
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  Quote tjadams Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jan-2012 at 00:23
That's how I can see it playing out, much like the ancient Pueblo (Anasazi) of the 
American Southwest.
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  Quote Toltec Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jan-2012 at 02:07
I was there the week before xmas.
 
It wasn't fully abandoned, till later, but the majority of the people left. Other theories include deforestation meant no building material, deforestion meant flooding and loss of agriculture, conversion from Hinduism to Buddism, Thai barbarians incursions chased the people away, climate change.
 
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  Quote tjadams Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jan-2012 at 02:29
Easy to see how man can fully change or alter a landscape that has flourished for 
centuries in so short a time. 
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  Quote medenaywe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jan-2012 at 02:34
Do you have inscriptions on stones,photos?Also others,art,pottery,statues etc.Post them here!Smile 
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  Quote lirelou Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Jan-2012 at 00:41
In re:  " Where did the people go after the city was abandoned? Did they create a new civilisation or revert to a more primitive state?"

First of all, while 'ancient' in terms of what is there today, it pays to remember that Angor Wat was built, inhabited, and abandoned between the Viking Age and the European age of discovery. So it is not all that 'ancient'.

Second, the people who built Angor still live in Cambodia, which is much diminished from its previous size, having lost wars to the Burmese, Thai, Cham, and lastly, the Vietnamese, who began moving into the Mekong Delta (Kampuchea Krom, or Lower Cambodia) in 1698. The Khmer were just one of many Indochinese states set up along Indian lines. Referred to as a "Mon-Khmer", they are likely the same people who inhabited ancient Funan (chinese name), whose spice, woods, and exotic animal products were traded as far away as Rome, if the Roman coins found at Oc Eo in the Mekong Delta are to be believed. Other states noted in what today is Central and southern Central Vietnam were the five Cham kingdoms of Indrapura (modern Danang), Amaravati, Vijaya (modern Qui Nhon), Kauthara (modern Nha Trang), and Panduranga (modern Phan Rang), who were likewise Hindu and used similar architecture on a much smaller scale (a Cham tower can be seen in Nha Trang). Most of the Highland tribes of the Central Highlands are Mon-Khmer in origin (Bahnar, Sedang, Jeh Katu, Rengao, Halang, Mnong), perhaps examples of Angor groups who reverted to a more primitive state, while the largest tribes, the Jarai and Rhade, are Malayo-Polynesians believed related to the Cham. Some historians now view the tribal peoples of Indochina as most likely representing the original culture and peoples of the peninsula, who spun off what became the Cambodian and Vietnamese cultures. (the Thai peoples who came south later also adopted Indian cultural characteristics). After Vietnam settled the Mekong Delta in the 18th and 19th centuries, they made Cambodia a virtual colony. Though some histories point out that it was legally a 'protectorate', King Ming Manh's "vietnamization" measures of the 1820s and 30s applied equally to upper Cambodia and the Mekong Delta. The French likely saved Cambodia from total absorption into Vietnam by ending the Vietnamese 'protectorate' around 1858, and thereafter allowed Cambodian populations in the Delta to be ruled from Phnom Penh in certain matters (such as being drafted into the Cambodian Army). That ended n 1949 when the French recognized Cochinchina as an integral part of Vietnam, an act that modern Cambodian nationalists see as one of betrayal. In very early 1946, when the French were desperately short of troops to face the emerging Viet Minh, the Cambodian government drafted two battalions of troops for French service. One was raised in Cambodia itself, with the second coming from the Mekong Delta. Likewise, when Lon Nol rebelled against the Sihanouk government, entire rebel Cambodian units fighting with U.S. Special Forces and the ARVN government moved into Cambodia to fight the Khmers Rouges.  

So, the bottom line is that you can find the descendants of the peoples who built Angor Wat walking around today in Cambodia itself, as well as in parts of eastern Thailand, and southern Vietnam. And they include tribal peoples, citizens of modern Cambodia, and the Khmer minorities of Thailand and Vietnam. 


Edited by lirelou - 06-Jan-2012 at 00:46
Phong trần mài một lưỡi gươm, Những loài giá áo túi cơm sá gì
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  Quote medenaywe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Jan-2012 at 03:13
Yes,Lirelou,civilizations rise and falls but people stay all around.Migrations have been eternal everywhere but
for "sufficient" part of population.Rest is still there.Production process changes make biggest sufficiency ever.Time period told us about that also.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jul-2012 at 07:29
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  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jul-2012 at 08:29
Originally posted by james321

I was looking to find posts on this particular topic and your post came up first on Google search and finely i have found your post that is even slightly related to what I need Nice post. i have very impressed to see this post. i have gotten lot of information from your post.nice information. nice work keep it up.


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