Angkor Thom "Great City"

Angkor Thom: The "Great City". Quadrilatero 9km2 nearly surrounded by a wall and thin laterite 7m high, doubled over its entire length of a rise of average width of 80m at the base, which overcomes a way round practicable. Each of the four sides of the city, the cardinal points are marked by doors of entries whose face turns to announce the architectural treatment of the Bayon and those that are preceded by pavement-Dykes to the crossing of ditches, box large Naga. Four small temples arranged in four corners of the city on the way round just to finish this together. City center is the Bayon temple mountain where four blocks straight escape into the four cardinal directions, unfolding over 1500m by cutting the urban space into four equal quadrants and reach from the wall of pregnant at the door. It is within these quadrants that daily life was organized and that the different communities residing who constituted. If the implementation of Angkor Thom is original, its design is not that of a new town since a series of older monuments: the Phimeanakas, royal palace and its terraces, the Prasat Suor Prat, twelve temples laterites, and especially the mountain temple of Baphuon.

Bayon Temple

Bayon: A unique Khmer architecture in this temple mountain situated at the heart of Angkor Thom, is circular. The pyramid has three levels. The first is surrounded by a gallery containing a series of bas reliefs relating to the life of Jayavarman VII: Battles of the beginning of his reign, daily life of Khmer people. The second floor also includes a gallery in bas-reliefs relate them to themes that Hindus can be surprised in a Buddhist temple. After a journey in these galleries and narrow passages, to rise up to the third floor, the terrace offers the best performance of a monumental multiplicitée smiling faces of the four directions, looking in all directions and the scruptant visitor. At this level, participates in the open space feeling of peace and eternity that the visitor will be entering this area of the Gods.
 

Baphuon: Monument with a main body dated XI ° and structures located along the eastern axis of the XIII to XV ° century It is without doubt the greatest reuse of business conducted on a monument angkorien the west side of the pyramid was decorated with an image of Buddha with a height of 6m in exchange for a partial démollition original architectural structures. Invasion of the vegetation, the appearance of disorder in the masonry and heavy rains in 1952 caused landslides that took different due to a large part of the monument. By the late fifties, anastylosis three full floors was decided but will not be truly complete until about 2004.
 

Royal Terraces: These high platforms whose sandstone walls are fully decorated with bas-reliefs, were once the foundations of a succession of galleries and houses covered with wooden tiles. These terraces bordering the Place Royale where many festivities held monthly: fireworks, dancing, fighting animals, chariot races, shooting the bow and a show "where you throw the ball" of According to the stories of Zhou Daguan. Perhaps it was the game of polo represented on two large reliefs of the porch of the north terrace of the elephants?
 

Terrace of the Leper King: Platform Phillips, 6m high and whose walls are richly carved 7 superimposed records of deities in high relief, representing the 7 levels of Mount Meru. In fact, this terrace is not one, nor that the king was a leper lepers nor king, the famous statue that was there and who gave his name to this terrace has been identified as that of Yama , the supreme judge. When traces of leprosy, it is reduced at the ends of broken fingers and patches of lichens (Christophe Pottier, restaurant terraces).

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