38 MARCH/APRIL 2022
Historians have put forward various theories to
explain the move. An important factor was likely
the military setbacks suffered at the hands of
the neighboring Siamese kingdom of Ayutthaya
(in present-day Thailand), which mounted
numerous attacks over the years. Others credit
shifting religious observances. The growing
predominance of Theravada Buddhism during
the 13th and 14th centuries did not sit easily
with the more hierarchical Hinduism of the
Khmer elites.
Environment also likely played a role: Ang-
kor boasted an extensive, advanced system of
artificial canals, dikes, and reservoirs, the larg-
est of which, West Baray, is 5 miles long and
1.5 miles wide—a remarkable feat of hydraulic
engineering for the time. The water harnessed
by this network slaked the thirst of three-
quarters-of-a-million residents in the world’s
largest preindustrial city, as well as irrigating the
rice fields. Historians believe a series of heavy
monsoons, followed by drought, may have dis-
abled the delicate irrigation infrastructure and
so hastened the demise of the site.
‘Lost’ and Found
The jungle reclaimed the area, and the urban
area was soon subsumed by dense vegetation.
Vast cotton silk trees grew up through the fall-
en towers, their silvery roots entwining pillars
and walls, until jungle and ruin became indivis-
ible. But one temple was never abandoned: Ang-
kor Wat itself. Between the end of the 14th cen-
tury and the beginning of the 15th, the complex
was restructured, transformed by Buddhist
monks into a site for pilgrimages.
In the middle of the 16th century, Europeans
began to arrive in Angkor—first Portuguese
merchants around 1555, then missionaries bent
on spreading Catholicism in the region. The
Portuguese merchant and historian Diogo do
Couto described how the Cambodian jungle was
concealing an abandoned city whose walls “are
entirely built with hewn stone, so perfect and
so well arranged that they seem to constitute
just one stone—which is... almost like marble.”
After the Portuguese came Spanish merchants
and missionaries. Among them was Fray Gabriel
Quiroga de San Antonio, who, in 1604 published
A Brief and Truthful Relation of Events in the King-
dom of Cambodia. His description reveals a deep
appreciation and respect: