Persistent Drought Ended City of Angkor

Bayon temple at Angkor, constructed in the 12th century.

The ancient city of Angkor likely collapsed due to failure to battle drought, scientists find.

First established in the 9th century, Angkor was capital of the Khmer Empire, the major player in southeast Asia for nearly five centuries. It stretched over more than 385 square miles ~ the most extensive urban complex in the preindustrial world.

Suggested causes for the fall of the Khmer Empire in the late 14th to early 15th centuries have included war and exploitation of the land. Recent evidence suggests that prolonged droughts might have been linked to the decline of Angkor. For instance, tree rings from Vietnam suggest the region experienced long spans of drought interspersed with heavy rainfall.

To learn about how the Khmer managed their water, scientists analyzed a 6-foot-long core sample of sediment taken from the southwest corner of the largest Khmer reservoir, the West Baray, which could hold 1.87 billion cubic feet of water, more than 20 times the amount of stone making up the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Click here for the complete article.

Water System Contributed to Angkor Demise

Monks on the temple steps of Angkor Wat.

International scientists using new archeological, pollen and tree-ring dating evidence contend that Angkor crumbled due to urban sprawl and extreme weather conditions.

Sydney University archeologist Roland Fletcher ~ a co-director of the Greater Angkor Project, an initiative involving Cambodian, French and Australian experts ~ said he believed the new findings carry "clear implications for modern cities."

The scientists believe that before an alternating series of droughts and monsoon floods hit Angkor from the mid-14th to late 15th centuries, the capital of the Khmer empire had already had extensive problems with its vast, complicated water system.

Ultimately, it became impossible for the city to keep pace with further pressures from extreme weather. Although there was ongoing conflict with neighboring states, it was the over-built water infrastructure that locked Angkor into a trajectory of decline.

Before Angkor vanished into the jungle in the 17th century, it was the world's largest low-density pre-industrial city. Between the ninth and 13th centuries, the metropolis was home to as many as 750,000 people.

Click here for the article in The Australian.