Angkor Wat Minecraft

Full details here.

Earlier last month and in July, I had the awesome opportunity to participate in a four-week field season at Angkor Wat, under the University of Sydney’s Greater Angkor Project.

Unit 2, located near the West Gopura of Angkor Wat

The project team was led by Dr. Miriam Stark from the University of Hawaii. For this phase of the Greater Angkor Project we were looking for evidence of habitation within Angkor after its ‘collapse’ in the 14th century. For most of the season I was assigned to work at Unit 2, a 2x3m pit located along the main causeway, near the Western Gopura. In this unit we were trying to confirm the results of a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) scan that Till Sonnemann, a PhD student from the USyd, had conducted a year before.

Till Sonneman (bottom left, in black), discussing the stratigraphy of Unit 1.

The GPR scan of the southwestern quadrant of Angkor Wat revealed the presence of building foundations. Unit 2, where I was working at, was to determine the veracity of the scan and we were expecting to hit some sort of wall.

The crew at Unit 2 discussing a feature uncovered during the excavation.

Our typical day at work:

However, most of the excavations were conducted on the side of Angkor Wat, in the eastern side which was heavily forested. There we opened several units over where we thought we might be able to find signs of post-Angkoran habitation. These areas were more remote and less frequented by tourists, but we definitely found a lot of mosquitoes!

Excavations in the eastern forested areas of Angkor Wat

It was a great four weeks and a real experience to work with so many different and great people. Definitely one of my highlights for the year =D.

The crew of GAP AWT 2010

What didn’t really come through in the PPP article was the paper on the facial pattern recognition study presented at the International Conference on Pattern Recognition in Istanbul, Turkey (it was buried somewhere in the middle of the article). The Cambodian Daily has a better-written paper on the article which you can read on Davis’ site, along with a download link to the facial recognition paper. The work is still very much in a preliminary stage, but quite promising and may potentially find correlations between types of faces with ethnicities or locations within the temple complex. It will be interesting to see what kinds of patterns emerge from a deeper analysis of the quantified attributes of the apsara/devata carvings emerge.

Sleuth researches enigmatic Angkor girls
Phnom Penh Post, 20 August 2010

The many faces of Angkor Wat
The Cambodian Daily, via www.devata.org, August 2010

Florida-based researcher, publisher and robot manufacturer Kent Davis is rapidly gaining an international reputation as the sleuth of Siem Reap, a new age detective delving into what he sees as one of the greatest mysteries of ancient Angkor Wat – the 1780 images of anonymous and mostly bare-breasted women depicted in carvings throughout the iconic structure.

Commonly known as apsaras (or, as Davis prefers, devatas), these female images were mostly accorded little significance.

But Davis, a former resident of Siem Reap and a regular visitor to Temple Town, is sure he’s onto something. He’s sure that these women represent something decidedly significant, but he’s not quite sure what.

Who are they, he asks, and why are there so many of them depicted throughout the great Khmer temple, not to mention other temples in the Angkorian complex?

Davis is now bristling with excitement because he has science on his side, and he’s certain that soon some answers will be revealed.

As of today, tourists will once again be able to enjoy the view from the very top level of Angkor Wat. The top tier, called the Bakan, has been closed for restoration since October 2007 and restoration work was undertaken by Khmer, German and Italian teams.

On December 31, Apsara issued a letter to various institutions, tour operators and tour guide associations saying that the Bakan will be opened but only temporarily. No dates have been given for when it will be closed again, or when it might be opened permanently.

photo credit: Aistis Zen

Angkor moat repair stalled
Phnom Penh Post, 13 November 2009

The expensive programme to repair, preserve and protect Angkor Wat’s moat has been set back due to the worldwide economic malaise, according to Mao Loa, Apsara Authority’s director of Department of Monuments Conservation and Preventive Archaeology in the Angkor Complex.

The plan to repair the moat has been in place since 2001, with restoration work to be shared between Cambodia, Japan, Italy and Germany.

But the project stalled because of the global financial crisis.

The length of the moat surrounding Angkor Wat temple is about 6,000 metres. The estimated repair cost of around US$1,200 per metre means the full cost of the project will ultimately be $7.2 million, with much of the work to be done by teams working underwater.

photo credit: yumyumbubblegum

In 2012, you might be able to drive across the Second Link to Johor Baru and, in 15 minutes, catch a view of the Petronas Twin Towers, India’s Taj Mahal, Cambodia’s Angkor Wat and Singapore’s Merlion — all at one go.

If these iconic edifices do pop up, however, they will be a bit smaller than usual. And they will be made up of tiny plastic bricks.

These are the sights being considered at Asia’s first Legoland, which is slated to come up at the Iskandar Malaysia development region in three years’ time.

Unlike the four other Legolands elsewhere — in Germany, England, Denmark and the United States — Legoland Malaysia is expected to boast an Asian theme, giving the familiar world of bricks a touch of local flavour.

photo credit: andy_carter

• Anton Diaz takes us inside the Balangay boat, which is due to set sail this weekend in a historic journey to retrace the ancient maritime routes through the Philippines. (Read more about it tomorrow!)
• Why should we be surprised that the small-brained hobbits used tools? Eric Drexler shows us examples of tool use in animals with much smaller brains in Homo floresiensis, Crows, and the Baldwin Effect

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• Nina wanders her way into Angkor with some beautiful shots of Angkor Wat.
• From Anthropology.net, read about the new paper in Anthropological Science about homo floresiensis’ relation to homo erectus.
• The Open Anthropology Cooperative is a new web resource for anyone with an interest in the subject – form groups, hold discussions and collaborate with friends. The last I checked, there wasn’t a Southeast Asian Anthropology yet.
• This Bangkok Post editorial sheds some light on why the thorny Preah Vihear issue may be too important for Thai politics.

In this series of occasional rojaks (published on Wednesdays) I feature other sites in the blogosphere that are related to archaeology in Southeast Asia. Got a recommendation for the next Wednesday rojak? Email me!