The Fall of Angkor (Part Three): What Really Happened to the Khmer Empire
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What was Angkor actually like to walk through? What really happened to the Khmer Empire, and why is the standard version wrong? Was Angkor ever actually "lost"?
Time Period Covered: 1296 – 1600 CE
In 1296, a Chinese diplomat named Zhou Daguan stepped off a boat at Angkor, stayed eleven months, and wrote down what he saw — the palace, the markets, the food, the gossip. His account is the only surviving eyewitness description of the city at its height. A century and a half later the capital moved south, and Europeans would eventually decide the city had been 'lost'. It hadn't, and what actually happened took the better part of a century of new science to work out.
Watch the full 5 hour documentary on YouTube
Sources
Chandler A History of Cambodia
Coe and Evans Angkor and the Khmer Civilization
Hendrickson, Stark and Evans (eds) The Angkorian World
Tully A Short History of Cambodia
Zhou Daguan trans. Peter Harris A Record of Cambodia
Penny et al Geoarchaeological evidence from Angkor reveals a gradual decline.
Zhao et al Hydroclimate and Paleoenvironmental Variability from the Tonle Sap Lake Basin 2024
Carter Alison in Cambodia (blog) SOSORO Museum of Economy and Money Phnom Penh