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00:00This week, join me in Cambodia as I unravel the mystery of a civilization that for centuries most thought didn't
00:07exist.
00:07A place of rumor, myth, and legend.
00:12Hidden in the jungle for over 400 years, the discovery of Angkor Wat shocked the world.
00:18Its intricate majesty could only be the work of an advanced and sophisticated people.
00:23But where did they go?
00:26And why did they abandon all these temples to the jungle?
00:30To uncover the mystery of the lost Khmer empire, I'll climb to the top of Cambodia's greatest temple.
00:36Learn the secrets of Bokushwa, its newly rediscovered lethal martial art.
00:42And take to the air to track down the reasons why this civilization disappeared into the mist of time.
00:49Reminds me of the good old days, flying hornets.
00:52We're digging for the truth and going to a stream to do it.
01:07Hi, I'm Hunter Ellis.
01:08I've come to Cambodia to explore the mysteries that still surround a great civilization that existed here over 800 years
01:15ago.
01:15The Khmer Empire.
01:17Its capital, called Angkor, is long gone.
01:20But the temples built by this powerful civilization are some of the wonders of the world today.
01:26That's what I want to see.
01:27The Khmer Empire dominated Southeast Asia from 800 to 1432 A.D.
01:35At its peak, the empire stretched from Vietnam to the Bay of Bengal and north to southwestern China.
01:42But despite its wealth and power, the Khmer Empire ultimately failed.
01:46Its land and temples abandoned.
01:49I'm here to find out why.
01:52For this assignment, there's only one place to start.
01:55And I'm told, only one person to start with.
01:57His name is Simon Warwick.
01:59He's among the world's leading experts in historic stone masonry.
02:02I'm told he's a tough man to track down.
02:04He's an Englishman who lives in Italy, who works with the Germans, who spends a bulk of his time here
02:10in Cambodia.
02:11Now, he told me to meet him at his office.
02:13Well, this is his office.
02:17Let's go see if we can track him down.
02:19Angkor Wat, Cambodia's most famous temple, is actually a huge complex.
02:25Just when you think you're approaching the main temple,
02:28you find out that you're only passing through an elaborate gate on the outer wall.
02:33This place is absolutely amazing.
02:35As you approach the front gate, that's all you can see.
02:38But then it opens up to all of this.
02:41The main temple, which is still 400 yards away.
02:46I'm told that Angkor Wat literally translates to city temple,
02:50as it used to be surrounded by an urban landscape that has long since disappeared.
02:57Simon works for the GACP, a German conservation project.
03:01Its mission is to save this Cambodian jewel from the ravages of time, weather, and human contact.
03:09I'm hoping that Simon can help me understand how such a masterpiece could be built and then abandoned.
03:16Angkor Wat is, in fact, the world's largest religious monument.
03:20That statement alone grabs your attention.
03:23But to see it is to believe it.
03:27The path leading ever upwards is a demanding journey,
03:30with stairways connecting different terraces on different levels.
03:35Finally, the center of the temple.
03:38It looks like I still have to head up there.
03:41Originally, it was a priest who would come up these steps.
03:44And they're definitely meant to be steep,
03:46because they represent the difficulty of getting into the kingdom of heaven.
03:51Simon!
03:53Hi!
03:54Hey, how are ya?
03:55I'm alright, come on up.
03:57It's right through there?
03:57Through the door, and I'll meet you at the bottom of the scaffolding, okay?
04:01Can you imagine coming this way to work every day?
04:07Hey, Simon!
04:08Hi, great to see you.
04:09I covered some serious ground to make it up here to you.
04:11Oh yeah, but it was worth it.
04:13Oh, I cannot believe this is your office.
04:15Angkor Wat?
04:16The greatest religious monument in the world.
04:18The magnitude of this place is truly hard to grasp.
04:22Angkor Wat tops out at 213 feet,
04:26making it as high as Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
04:29And it holds as much stone as the Great Pyramid of Khufu.
04:33And how long did all of this take?
04:35Well, that's what's so incredible.
04:36It only took 32 years to build.
04:38I think if we were to build something like this today,
04:40it would take us longer than 30 years.
04:42No question.
04:43If you compare that with the buildings in Europe, like cathedrals,
04:47some of which are much smaller than this,
04:49they took 300, 400 years.
04:51So 10 times the length of time it took to build all of this.
04:54Right, and there's a lot more stone here.
04:56Simon tells me that it took 50,000 workers
04:59to build this extraordinary temple.
05:02It's surrounded by a four-mile moat
05:04and crowned by five huge towers.
05:07But size doesn't begin to measure the real power of Angkor Wat.
05:11Well, I've been coming here now since 1994.
05:14It's a long time.
05:15And, you know, every time I come in,
05:17I see something new, something different.
05:19It's so varied, so complicated.
05:21Virtually every surface in this temple
05:23is covered with exquisite carvings.
05:26Surprisingly, these stories come from a faith
05:28that originated in India far across the sea.
05:31It's incredibly sophisticated, this carving.
05:32They're telling stories from Hindu mythology up here.
05:35But how does the Hindu faith arrive in Southeast Asia?
05:40Because we're 2,000 miles away from India.
05:41It turns out the answer lies in the monsoon winds
05:45that carried seafaring Indian traders to the Mekong Delta.
05:49Marooned for months before they could ride the monsoon's home again,
05:52they traveled upriver,
05:53passing their religion, art, and architecture
05:56onto the local people.
05:57The religious community were trying to communicate
06:01with people who couldn't read.
06:02So they put these images and the stories on the wall
06:05so that the people could understand it.
06:06What are some of the stories that are being told?
06:08Well, this is very interesting.
06:10This is an image that you'll find
06:11on religious buildings around the world.
06:13It's the Last Judgment.
06:14Now, I notice that some of these guys
06:15have their faces carved out or destroyed.
06:18This figure's particularly unpopular.
06:20He's the administrator who actually gives out the sentence.
06:22So he's the sort of prison guard
06:25who says, you're going to hell.
06:26It's not looking too pleasant down there.
06:28It's hell.
06:28There's 32 different types of hell as well.
06:31So is that a superstitious thing over the years
06:33that people have come in and destroyed the faces of the demons?
06:36That's the local people just saying,
06:37bad, bad, I don't like him, bad, bad.
06:39Simon tells me that these bas-relief carvings
06:42go on for more than half a mile.
06:44They're the longest continuous sculptures in the world.
06:47It's an awesome sight, but one that may not last.
06:51It starts and stops raining
06:52at a moment's notice around here, huh?
06:54Simon takes me on a precarious path
06:56to his current work site
06:57to show me the ongoing struggle
06:59to keep this civilization from disappearing again.
07:03So I just want to show you here,
07:04this is what happens if we get here too late.
07:06It's gone.
07:07Yeah, and when it's gone,
07:08all you've got is a rock.
07:09Here, we've lost the surface.
07:11We've just got geology.
07:12Here, we've got history.
07:14The ravages of time have weakened these carvings.
07:17They're now separating from the foundation.
07:21How do you keep this from happening
07:23when it exists in an environment
07:24where it rains like this all the time?
07:26Actually, it rains some of the time
07:28and the other time it's really, really hot and dry.
07:30So really the key word here is research.
07:32You've got to understand exactly why things are happening
07:34and only then can you understand
07:35how to treat them properly.
07:37But when you have the biggest religious monument
07:40in the entire world,
07:41is your work ever going to be done?
07:43No chance.
07:44So what we've got to do is train the guys here
07:45to do it by themselves.
07:46I mean, this is their heritage.
07:47Their ancestors built it.
07:49But they should be doing it.
07:58This is one of those places
07:59you never get tired of exploring.
08:01And that's good
08:02because I still haven't cracked the core mystery.
08:04How did a people in the middle of the jungle
08:07build one of the greatest stone monuments on Earth?
08:12A few places on this planet inspire as much wonder
08:15as Cambodia's national treasure,
08:18Angkor Wat.
08:19But the more I see of it,
08:20the more questions I have.
08:22Not only did the ancient Khmer
08:24construct one of the largest stone buildings in the world,
08:26they did it without using any kind of mortar.
08:30How'd they pull that off?
08:32I'm hitting the road to find out.
08:35Just 20 miles northeast of Angkor Wat,
08:37I come to a place so important to the Khmer,
08:40they've revered it as sacred.
08:42A majority of the Angkorian temples
08:44were built using a local sandstone.
08:46And huge blocks like this
08:47are all that remain of an old quarry
08:50that lies here at the foot of the Kulin Mountains.
08:53The sacred stone from the Kulin Mountains
08:55was used not only for the massive temple at Angkor Wat,
08:58but for literally hundreds of other Khmer temples
09:01across northern Cambodia.
09:03Imagine the manpower needed to cut blocks from these cliffs,
09:06drag them into place,
09:08and then build the astonishing temples we see today.
09:11How did they do it?
09:13It's essentially the same question
09:15that has puzzled Egyptologists for centuries.
09:17But in the case of the Khmer,
09:19we may have found a key
09:21that unlocks an important piece of this mystery.
09:25Angkor Archaeological Park
09:26includes about 70 ruins
09:28in an area that's roughly 80 square miles.
09:30Simon Warwick tells me
09:32that in one of these temples,
09:33there's an obscure but significant carving.
09:36Okay, this is the place that gives us a clue
09:37as to how the temple was built.
09:39Now, you see these guys up here?
09:41Yeah.
09:41They've got a horizontal beam
09:42with a lever hanging off it,
09:44and then a block.
09:44And these guys are pushing the block backwards and forwards,
09:47rubbing it on the one below.
09:48It's fascinating that there's a clue right here.
09:50Would it be possible
09:51to build something similar to this
09:52to try out the method?
09:54Why not?
09:55Let's have a go.
09:57To test out how the Khmer
09:59made their stones fit together so perfectly,
10:02we're going to try and build a machine
10:03similar to the one we saw on the temple wall.
10:06Hey, Simon.
10:07Everything just as ordered.
10:08We're working from a sketch
10:10based on the bas-relief we saw earlier.
10:12Got all the beams.
10:13Our laboratory is a local masonry workshop
10:16where modern artisans make recreations
10:19of the temple carvings.
10:21The Cambodians who work here
10:22have never done anything like this,
10:24but they're curious and willing to help.
10:27It's basically a crossbeam with a lever.
10:29That's right.
10:30This will hopefully allow us
10:31to lift more weight a lot more easily.
10:34Well, what it'll do is
10:35it'll take the weight off the top block
10:37so that it's easier to move it backwards and forwards.
10:41We get right to the business
10:43of building the supports for the crossbeam.
10:45But the 95-degree tropical heat
10:48makes everything a challenge.
10:51What's he say?
10:52He said pouring a bit slow.
10:53Do you need some help?
10:54How do you say pouring a bit hot?
10:56Barang-dauna.
10:57Barang-dauna, yeah.
10:59Allow the master.
11:01My new Cambodian friends
11:03generously lend me a hand.
11:05With the supports up,
11:06we hoist the crossbeam.
11:08Our project is starting to take shape.
11:11Woo-hoo!
11:13Yeah!
11:14We need to tie the framework nice and tight.
11:16It's going to support a lot of weight.
11:19All right!
11:21So there's 200 pounds at least, huh?
11:27How do we move the stone?
11:29My head.
11:33Now we're ready to muscle
11:35the first rock into position.
11:39Once the bottom rock is in place,
11:41we attach the lever.
11:44All right!
11:45Very well hung, as they say.
11:48Yes, this is very well hung.
11:51To make it easier to move
11:52the top block into position,
11:54we drill holes
11:55and insert pegs into the rock.
11:57Simon says this is exactly
11:59how the Anchorians did it.
12:01The side ones are for lifting
12:03and the top ones will help us
12:04rub it backwards and forwards.
12:05Okay.
12:06Okay?
12:06But the important thing is
12:08that this enables us to lift it
12:09without having a rope underneath it.
12:11So by not having any ropes underneath,
12:13that's what would allow them
12:14to get the nice, smooth contact.
12:16In every civilization in the world,
12:18they've always found a system
12:19for lifting a block
12:20without having a rope underneath it.
12:21because when you put a 10-ton block
12:24down on a building,
12:25you don't want to have to
12:25pull out the rope afterwards.
12:26Hey!
12:27Oh!
12:35Oh!
12:35Oh!
12:36Oh!
12:36Oh!
12:38Oh!
12:39Oh!
12:40We just lifted 400 pounds.
12:43The big moment has come.
12:45We had a plan,
12:46we executed it,
12:47and it looks just like the diagram.
12:49Ready, guys?
12:51Up!
12:52All right!
12:53Now let's see if it works.
12:55This feels really uneven.
12:57It doesn't...
12:58It's banging the corners.
12:59Simon's idea was to use
13:00a straight back-and-forth grinding motion
13:03to smooth the rocks.
13:05That doesn't work so well,
13:07so Chotry, the shop owner,
13:08suggests a new way to go.
13:10Are you twisting it?
13:10Yeah, I'm twisting it.
13:11Now I'm definitely feeling
13:12more rubbing this way.
13:14It's feeling more like it's grinding.
13:16Yeah, it feels more like it.
13:18It feels much more even and smooth.
13:20Wow, yeah.
13:21It's an ancient version of sandpaper.
13:23After five minutes of grinding,
13:25we're ready to see our handiwork.
13:27Take it off, Chotry.
13:29Oh, oh, oh.
13:29It's in, it's in, it's in.
13:30Yeah, it's in, it's in, it's in, it's in.
13:31Dip, dip, dip, dip, dip, dip.
13:33Down, down, down, down.
13:36Okay, we got a sandy mess there.
13:38What do you think's underneath?
13:39I think it's smooth.
13:40You do?
13:41Yeah, this, this feels nice and smooth right here.
13:45Only two million more to go
13:47and we're gonna have our own temple.
13:50You really have to admire ingenuity like that
13:52and appreciate just how hard they had to work.
13:56When we return to the temples,
13:58I find myself noticing details
13:59I never saw the first time.
14:02You know, I'm starting to see these holes everywhere
14:04and now I realize just how important they were
14:06to put this whole place together.
14:08Yeah, I mean, that's what's great about this.
14:09As you look around, you see more and more and more.
14:12So much to see.
14:14Simon takes me to see the two most exquisite carvings at Angkor Wat.
14:19After our successful experiment,
14:21he says I can now appreciate
14:23why the Angkorians labored so hard
14:25to fit their blocks perfectly.
14:28Well, this place wasn't so much planned, carved, and assembled
14:32the way places are in Europe.
14:34This was planned, assembled, and then carved afterwards.
14:38So essentially, we're walking inside of one giant sculpture.
14:42Right, now have a look at this.
14:43This will give you an idea of what I'm talking about.
14:44Ah, this is beautiful.
14:46This, for me, is one of the most perfect pieces of carving in the temple.
14:49It's absolutely beautiful.
14:50And you can actually see the fine seams
14:52where they've assembled it right here.
14:53These are the joints.
14:54You see, she's not made of one single block.
14:56She's made of four different blocks.
14:58How difficult is it to carve multiple blocks
15:00stacked on top of each other?
15:01If these were just stacked together with a mortar joint
15:04the way we do in Europe,
15:05you wouldn't be able to carve over it
15:07because it would snap.
15:08The fact that they've made a perfect razor contact joint
15:12means that these two blocks act like one single block.
15:14And the pressure between these two blocks
15:16means that you can run your chisel over
15:18and you don't snap off the edge.
15:20And I imagine you probably only get one shot
15:23because it's already built.
15:25I can't imagine how scary it must have been to carve this.
15:28If you snap off that nose while you're carving,
15:32where do you go from there?
15:33And you probably got one less stone carver
15:36because I reckon the king would.
15:38What's more, Simon tells me
15:40that every little detail in the temple
15:42contributes to an overarching cosmic plan.
15:45The Khmer regarded their rulers as gods on Earth
15:48and this temple was built to represent
15:50the Hindu universe in miniature.
15:52Its towers symbolized Mount Meru,
15:54the celestial home of the gods,
15:56and its huge moat, the vast cosmic oceans.
16:01But here on Earth,
16:02their universe ultimately came crashing down.
16:05What went wrong?
16:10Anchor Wat, it may be the most beautiful religious monument ever built
16:14and the most mystifying.
16:17Completed in 1145,
16:19the crown jewel of the Khmer Empire
16:21was inexplicably deserted two centuries later.
16:24The remote location and the relentless Cambodian jungle
16:28hid all the region's temples for over 400 years.
16:33They were the stuff of legend until 1860,
16:36when a French naturalist named Henri Mouot
16:39came upon them by accident.
16:41When his report hit Paris,
16:43these temples became all the rage across Europe,
16:46with people talking wildly about a new lost world.
16:53I imagine this is what it must have been like
16:56when Henri Mouot stumbled upon Anchor Wat.
16:59The jungle had reclaimed the stone temple.
17:03As you can see,
17:05the tree just digs its roots into any openings it can find
17:08and grasps onto the stone,
17:10creating a silent but deadly slow-motion wrestling match.
17:15And given time,
17:16the tree always wins
17:17and destroys its host.
17:19It's brutal,
17:21yet beautiful.
17:24Mouot and other early European explorers
17:27didn't believe that ancestors of the natives they met
17:30could have constructed these fantastic temples.
17:33They credited an unknown race of master builders.
17:38But they couldn't have been more wrong.
17:41To get a better sense of all the Khmer's accomplishments,
17:45I'm meeting up with Damien Evans,
17:47the deputy director of something called The Gap.
17:50Damien!
17:51Hunter, how's it going?
17:52Hey, good, how you doing?
17:53Good, mate.
17:54Come on up the stairs, this way.
17:55GAP stands for the Greater Angkor Project,
17:57where archaeologists use sophisticated aerial imaging techniques
18:01to peer deeply into Cambodia's past.
18:03So this is the very first radar image of Angkor,
18:06taken by NASA from a space shuttle in 1994.
18:08So I'm guessing that right here is the temple complex, right?
18:13That's right.
18:13Actually, that little square in the middle there is Angkor Wat.
18:16As you can see,
18:16it shows us for the first time
18:18that Angkor was absolutely huge.
18:19Next, Damien shows me a new image created by AirSAR,
18:23which stands for Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar.
18:26Its longer wavelengths penetrate the forest canopy
18:29to expose much more than meets the eye.
18:31It shows us that Angkor was more than just a collection of temples.
18:34It shows us that it was a vast inhabited landscape
18:36which sprawled over more than 1,000 square kilometers of this area.
18:39What is this reservoir right here?
18:41That one there is the West Burai.
18:43It's a reservoir that's 8 kilometers long, 2 kilometers wide,
18:45designed to trap water coming down from the north during the dry season
18:48and distribute it throughout the south.
18:50This map reveals a remarkable new discovery,
18:53an extensive system of waterworks hidden for centuries in the Cambodian landscape.
18:58So in this map, you can see much more clearly the detail
19:01and the sophistication of the water management system.
19:03You see dozens and dozens of canals.
19:04In fact, you can trace the flow of the water through this network
19:07from this area here through this very complex system in the middle
19:10and then dispersed throughout Angkor to the south.
19:12This is great because down on the ground,
19:14you'd have no idea that any of this exists.
19:17Yeah, look, even archaeologists have trouble making sense of this landscape from the ground.
19:21What you really need to do is get up in the air
19:22and have a look at things from an aerial perspective.
19:25Sounds like a great time for a little airborne reconnaissance.
19:32Damien and his colleagues have recently released a major new study.
19:36Turns out, Angkor Wat was just a small part of the largest settlement in the pre-industrial world.
19:46And arguably, the Khmer's greatest achievement was not their temples,
19:50but what they could do with water.
19:52So what we can see down here is the West Barive.
19:55This is the largest reservoir in the Khmer Empire.
19:57It holds about 50 million cubic meters of water.
20:00Absolutely massive.
20:02How was this created?
20:03Did they dam up a certain part of it or was this all hand dug?
20:06A little bit of both, actually.
20:08The downslope side was probably a dam originally
20:10and then they formalized it into making it a huge rectangular reservoir
20:13by mounding up earth all along the sides of it.
20:16So this was pure hard labor right here.
20:18Absolutely.
20:19Just like any task on the landscape here, it's completely flat.
20:22So any time you see something like this, it means that they've just poured thousands
20:25and thousands of people into remodeling the landscape in that area.
20:28I mean, when you think about 16 square kilometers of a reservoir in the 12th century,
20:33that's a huge engineering feat.
20:34The engineering here is unparalleled.
20:36You don't see it really anywhere else in the pre-industrial world on this kind of scale.
20:41Turning north, we fly over ancient rice paddies
20:44whose boundaries were set a thousand years ago.
20:48What we can see crisscrossing the landscape here
20:51is an incredible system of water management
20:53that really doesn't exist anywhere else in the ancient world on this kind of scale.
20:56Is that what this is right here in front of me?
20:58Right.
20:58This is actually the main feeder line of water from the headwaters
21:01where the rain falls in the Kulin Mountains to the north
21:04and transporting it right down into the central temple district.
21:07You know, archaeologists have always known about these huge temples.
21:10For at least 100, 150 years, they've been well studied.
21:12What we've been able to do using remote sensing
21:15and using this NASA radar imagery
21:17is to really come to terms with the scale
21:19and the complexity of this water management system.
21:22With Damien's help, I now see the landscape is full of clues to the past.
21:27It's amazing to consider the skills of these ancient Angkorians.
21:30When I first saw the temple of Angkor Wat, I was blown away.
21:34But I literally thought that that was all there is.
21:36But now I realize after being up here in the air
21:38that it's part of a greater civilization that goes on and on
21:42as far as the eye can see.
21:44It truly is very impressive.
21:48From the Kulin Mountains to the temples and rice fields below,
21:52this intricate scheme of 1,100 square miles of irrigation and reservoirs
21:57gave the Khmer year-round harvests.
22:01It made it possible to feed a population of up to a million people
22:05and brought its rulers vast wealth.
22:09From this perspective, we can clearly see how they mastered their environment
22:13and even catch a glimpse of a temple still shrouded in jungle foliage.
22:19And how many people have ever been to this temple, you think?
22:22Maybe half a dozen people, I think, would have been to this temple on the ground.
22:25And this area is littered with things like this?
22:27This is one of several hundred temples like this.
22:32So right now, we're heading up to the north of Angkor,
22:34towards the Kulin Mountains,
22:36which is the source of the water for the Siembrie River,
22:38which feeds the central temple zone.
22:40What you're going to see up here is pretty impressive.
22:45Our pilot goes in for a close-up
22:47before landing us on top of the mountain.
22:57They're still actively clearing mines in these areas?
22:59Yeah, they are.
23:00It's very heavily mined in this area here.
23:02Well, I'll follow you then.
23:04Due to its strategic location,
23:06this area is riddled with landmines.
23:09Cambodia is still emerging from a nightmare.
23:11Thirty years of war,
23:14including the genocidal reign of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s.
23:21But a fragile peace is now renewing the hope of the people here
23:25and allowing them to once again enjoy their birthright.
23:31Damien takes me to a sacred part of the river.
23:34Wow, look at this.
23:35It looks like they've actually carved out the stone of the riverbed here.
23:39That's right, yeah.
23:39In fact, all of this area here is carved out underneath the water.
23:43What are these symbols?
23:44Well, the central object there is called a lingam.
23:46It's a phallic symbol, a symbol of male fertile power.
23:48The enclosure around that is called a yoni,
23:50which is a representation of female fertile power.
23:52Is this meant to give some sort of symbolic power to the water here?
23:56That's right.
23:56As the water flows over the top,
23:58it's imbued with this kind of ritual fertility.
24:00Then it flows down from the Kulin out into the rice fields,
24:02and Angkor down below,
24:03and sort of delivers that fertile power to the rice fields.
24:07Damien tells me that these symbols would have been carved during the dry season,
24:10when the riverbed is exposed.
24:14There are hundreds of these carvings engraved here.
24:18So, in a sense, they're blessing the source of the water that feeds their empire.
24:22That's exactly right.
24:23If I were to climb in and touch the stone or drink from the water,
24:26would that give me strength and fertility?
24:27Look, I don't know about that,
24:28but I'm pretty sure it would make you very sick,
24:29so you'd need all the help that you could get, I reckon.
24:33Now that I understand the spiritual importance of the water here,
24:36I want to get another look at that spectacular waterfall.
24:42These are just the smaller ones up here.
24:44It goes down, and the bigger ones are down there.
24:47These are the headwaters of the Siem Reef River.
24:50It's called the Ganges of Cambodia, and now I know why.
24:54Like the Holy River in India,
24:55people come here to be renewed in both body and soul.
25:00It's not hard to believe it's a little bit of heaven.
25:12It's so forceful underneath that waterfall,
25:15but you can't appreciate it until you're actually standing right under it.
25:18And this is the exact same power that fueled the Khmer Empire.
25:22It's absolutely amazing.
25:32Damien and I leave the mountain as we arrive by helicopter.
25:36Driving back into town,
25:37he explains how water and rice were the keys to the Khmer's success.
25:42Would they have used the canals for agriculture?
25:44Traditionally, people have denied that that's the case,
25:47but increasingly what our mapping work and what our excavations are showing
25:50is that these canals were very tightly integrated
25:52into the rice agriculture system here at Angkor.
25:54Well, you would have needed a big army to build an empire that was that huge,
25:58and rice would be a cheap way to feed them.
25:59That's absolutely right.
26:00You know, if you manage water very effectively,
26:02you can also create huge surpluses
26:04and convert that directly into empire building.
26:09For centuries, the Khmer managed their water effectively,
26:13allowing them to feed their vast population
26:15and consolidate their power.
26:19They built a strong and wealthy empire,
26:21but their bas-reliefs reveal another clue to their success.
26:26It's Cambodia's secret weapon,
26:29the lost and lethal martial art,
26:32Bokator.
26:36I've come to northwest Cambodia
26:39in an attempt to solve one of the world's great riddles.
26:42How could a civilization that built this
26:44virtually disappear overnight?
26:47Their masterpiece, Lost to the Jungle,
26:49for over 400 years.
26:51Angkor Wat's rediscovery in the 19th century
26:54gave evidence, once again,
26:56that history is usually defined by those with the power.
27:00The ancient Khmer inscriptions found on many of these temples
27:03proclaim the greatness of the kings who built them,
27:05but they tell us very little about the daily lives of the Khmer people.
27:10But it was, after all, the ancient Khmer people
27:13who built the rice fields, canals, reservoirs,
27:16and temples that distinguished the civilization.
27:19And it's their features that are reflected in the faces of Cambodians today.
27:24To learn more about the Khmer, past and present,
27:27I've come to the old market in downtown Siem Reek.
27:30We have the fish with chester balls,
27:33and it's all different kinds of fruit.
27:35Kin Po Tai is a cultural expert who grew up in this town.
27:39This is on the bas-relief of the temple.
27:41This one is right here.
27:42Yeah, it's been preserved for a thousand years.
27:45It's simple.
27:45It's just salted and dry out in the sun.
27:49Tai tells me that many things we see around us
27:51have changed surprisingly little in the last millennium.
27:54And the proof is carved in stone just a few miles down the road.
28:00So this is the second largest temple in Angkor,
28:04after the Angkor Wat, and it's the Bayan.
28:07It's one of the most famous temples as well in Angkor.
28:11Tai tells me that the Bayan is actually a Buddhist shrine.
28:15It was built in the 12th century by a Khmer king
28:18who converted to this new faith when it swept through Southeast Asia.
28:22The Bayan is famous for the more than 200 giant faces
28:26atop its 54 stone towers
28:28and for its unique wall carvings.
28:30These look a lot different than the ones over at Angkor Wat.
28:33Yes, because here's more about the everyday life of the people
28:36and the histories of war and way of life.
28:40It's like a window to its pass.
28:41What do some of these things show us here?
28:43All here you see the market.
28:46This is just a lady selling fish.
28:47So we're at the old market today, but this is the really old market, huh?
28:51That's correct. This is the old, old market.
28:52Is this some sort of gambling scene right here?
28:54Yes.
28:55It is cockfighting between the Chinese or the Khmer here.
29:00So it's Khmer versus Chinese cockfight,
29:03and everyone's placing their bets.
29:05That's correct.
29:06My money's on the Khmer.
29:07And the Khmer.
29:10These stunning reliefs immortalize a civilization.
29:13The lady's giving birth here.
29:15From the wild boar fights to the construction of their temples.
29:21With the thousands of relief we have here at the Bayan,
29:24it seems like we have a very good idea of what life was like back in the 12th century.
29:28But are there any written accounts from outside the Khmer Empire
29:31that would corroborate all of this?
29:33Yes, there was only one written account,
29:35but not by the Khmer peoples who live here.
29:38It was written by Joe Takwan,
29:40a great diplomat who arrived here in 1296, 1297,
29:44and he spent years living in the city here.
29:46So he experienced life here and wrote about it,
29:50and it matches what we see on the walls.
29:51That's correct.
29:53Joe Takwan's journal of Khmer life at the end of the 13th century
29:56has been invaluable to historians.
29:59But many suspect that he was more than a diplomat,
30:03that he was in fact a spy.
30:06As an agent of his own powerful empire,
30:08Joe casts a wary eye on his host's military capabilities,
30:12for good reason.
30:14Temple carvings at the Bayan clearly show
30:17that the Khmer were a ferociously warlike people.
30:21And now, with the help of animators at Monash University in Australia,
30:25we have the first historically-based 3D simulation of the Khmer in combat.
30:30Here against their arch enemies, the Chiang,
30:33who came out of what is now Vietnam.
30:38Behind every great empire is a great army.
30:41But this scene indicates that their success may have had less to do
30:44with superior tactics and weaponry
30:46than it did with the ferocity with which they fought.
30:49A Khmer character trait still very much on display.
30:58This is typical of so many houses and stores here in Cambodia,
31:02as Pradal-Saray, or kickboxing, is their national sport.
31:05But we've uncovered a form of fighting
31:07that even these martial arts fans haven't heard of.
31:09It predates modern kickboxing
31:11and goes back to the time of the Angkorian warrior.
31:15Speaking of warriors,
31:17this is one dude you do not want to annoy.
31:20Adventure journalist Antonio Graceffo
31:22has literally fought his way around the world.
31:25But he came here to Cambodia
31:26to seek out the original martial art of Southeast Asia,
31:30the lost discipline of Bokotor.
31:33I have fought eight countries in Asia,
31:35Europe, the States,
31:36and Bokotor is by far the most interesting
31:39and most complete martial art I've ever seen in my life.
31:41But in an age when martial arts are so popular,
31:44why hasn't anybody heard of it?
31:45You know, it goes all the way back to the 11th century,
31:47but it almost died out twice.
31:49Once at the end of the Angkorian Empire
31:50and then again during the Khmer Rouge period.
31:52They actually hunted down and killed all of the known masters.
31:56Antonio tells me that Bokotor would have been lost forever
31:59were it not for the sacrifices of this man,
32:0263-year-old Grand Master Sean Kim San.
32:06How did the art resurface then?
32:08Well, the Grand Master survived the Khmer Rouge period.
32:10He escaped to the States as a refugee.
32:12And then in 2002, he returned here
32:14to teach the art to children
32:15and to find the masters who had survived.
32:17You know, he only found 10 of them.
32:19Was he a hard guy to track down?
32:20It took me 18 months.
32:21That's a long time.
32:22Did you ever feel like giving up?
32:23No way, man.
32:24I was digging for the truth.
32:25Nice.
32:31Why is Bokotor the best martial art?
32:46I'm a believer, but what does that mean?
32:48He said our Khmer Bokotor is the best
32:50because we've got so many techniques.
32:51We can use our elbows, we can use our fists,
32:53we can kick, we can knee,
32:55he can twist, he can bend, and he can kill.
32:58The Grand Master brought up 10 of his top students
33:00from Phnom Penh to our meeting place,
33:02a Buddhist monastery near Siem Reef.
33:09It actually looks like it's a team close fighting technique
33:13that you need to be very close to your opponent
33:15in order to strike.
33:16That's right, that's right.
33:17Bokotor is unique in that they can fight very close,
33:19the elbows, knees, and then also grapple
33:21when they come in close.
33:22Looks, when executed properly,
33:24it'll be pretty vicious.
33:25It is, it is.
33:27After they finish group training,
33:29the Master works with his two top students
33:31so I can see his moves up close.
33:34Yeah, using that elbow right against the elbow there, huh?
33:36That's pretty much his signature movement,
33:38is that quick elbow strike.
33:41Yeah, and it's all quick and body control, huh?
33:52Oh, did he just rip his trachea out?
33:53He ripped out his trachea.
33:57Simple head twist.
33:58I could feel that one from here.
34:02Oh, just spinning that head around.
34:05That's the Linda Blair.
34:06The exorcist move, huh?
34:10Can't do this at home.
34:12Yeah.
34:15He said he wants to show you
34:17the Khmer short stick fighting.
34:30So you want to try some?
34:31Yeah, let's walk before we run.
34:34We'll put the sticks on hold
34:35and let's start with some elbow moves.
34:36Maybe we'll start by crawling.
34:38Okay.
34:39Take it easy on me.
34:40Oh, I'll take it easy.
34:41I like you.
34:42Here comes the black belt.
34:43Okay, punch.
34:44Okay, so I can block here
34:45and I can come up with my elbow here.
34:47Okay.
34:49Yeah.
34:52And I would let go.
34:53You would let go.
34:54Then come down and...
34:56As you observed before,
34:57there's a lot of techniques
34:58we're going to control.
34:59Yeah.
34:59I'm going to bring them into a knee
35:00or into an elbow or whatever.
35:02Because when you do that,
35:03I mean, just the way...
35:04The weight.
35:04Yeah, the way you have control,
35:06I mean, there's not much I can do
35:08to fight it.
35:08And it's painful.
35:09If I were to come in here like this
35:10and try to grab you that way,
35:12how would you defend against it?
35:13What would I do?
35:13I'd probably hit one.
35:14Okay.
35:16There you go.
35:17So a lot of this is predicated
35:18on your attacker coming in
35:20and kind of throwing blows.
35:21But what if I were
35:22to kind of just be charging at you
35:24like a bull?
35:24It'd be like fighting my sister.
35:27Oh, really?
35:28Okay.
35:33I hope you like your sister.
35:39In their demonstration of Bokotor,
35:41these modern-day Khmer warriors
35:43give me plenty of evidence
35:44why their ancestors
35:45were so successful
35:47in building and defending
35:48their empire.
35:49But even these skills
35:51didn't save them
35:52from their fate.
35:54Despite all their power,
35:55wealth, and knowledge,
35:57the Khmer Empire
35:57ultimately failed.
35:59The city and its temples
36:00were abandoned,
36:01and the jungle
36:02swallowed all that was left.
36:03But what were the forces
36:05that led to the downfall
36:06of the Angkorians?
36:07And is it
36:08a cautionary tale for us?
36:13In my quest to understand
36:15the legendary Khmer Empire,
36:16I've plumbed the mysteries
36:18of her overgrown temples
36:19and deciphered how they were
36:21constructed by building
36:22a stone-grinding machine
36:23based on a long,
36:25unnoticed clue.
36:27From the air,
36:28I cracked the watery matrix
36:29that was their secret
36:30to extraordinary wealth.
36:32And I experienced firsthand
36:33the power of both
36:35her sacred river
36:36and her lost martial art.
36:39The Khmer created
36:40a dazzling kingdom
36:41that dominated Southeast Asia.
36:43And yet,
36:44in the 15th century,
36:46their civilization collapsed.
36:48Their city and temples
36:49were abandoned
36:50to the grip of the jungle.
36:52Like in any great murder mystery,
36:54the list of suspects here is long.
36:56By the 1400s,
36:57it includes marauding invaders,
36:59a rebellious and disgruntled
37:00labor force,
37:02shifting state religion
37:03based on which king
37:04was in power,
37:05and internal struggles
37:06between the king
37:07and powerful Khmer families.
37:10To find out the number one reason
37:12why the Khmer Empire
37:13met its end,
37:14I've arranged to meet up again
37:16with Damien Evans,
37:17the deputy director
37:18of the Greater Anchor Project.
37:21All right,
37:21so I have a few questions for you.
37:22Sure, fire away.
37:23Well, I'm completely impressed
37:24with how sophisticated
37:25the Khmer Empire was.
37:27But what happened?
37:27How did they disappear?
37:29Well, the thing that you have to remember
37:30is that in the collapse
37:31of civilizations,
37:32there's rarely just one factor
37:34that you can point the finger at.
37:35Usually, there's a range
37:36of different things going on.
37:38In the case of Engbohr,
37:39what our work is showing
37:40is that the water management system
37:41was a critical factor
37:42in the decline.
37:43Really?
37:43So the same thing
37:44that made them so great
37:45also led to their demise?
37:46That's right.
37:47The water management system
37:48started off very simple,
37:49and then over the centuries
37:50became more and more complex
37:52and difficult to maintain,
37:53and this in turn
37:54caused problems
37:55for the fundamental basis
37:56of their economy,
37:56which was rice agriculture.
37:59According to Damien,
38:00one thing led to another.
38:03Over-planting of rice fields
38:05led to deforestation.
38:06which led to soil erosion,
38:08which caused huge amounts
38:10of debris and sediment
38:11to rush downstream,
38:12blocking up the canals
38:13and reservoirs.
38:15Reaching and flooding
38:15broke down
38:16the entire man-made watershed.
38:19The result?
38:20Famine
38:21in a city of as many
38:22as a million people.
38:24Hey-ah!
38:28Whee!
38:28All right.
38:31That looks like
38:32a great way to cool off.
38:33The water actually comes
38:34from the Siem Reap River
38:34way down here.
38:36Now, is this water wheel
38:37something that you guys
38:38built yourself?
38:39No, I'm not exactly sure
38:40who built this,
38:40but in any case,
38:42it's just a hypothetical
38:42reconstruction of technology
38:44that they may have used
38:44during the Angkor period
38:45to move water
38:46from very low places
38:47up to much higher ground.
38:49It's important to remember
38:50that this is not
38:50a natural river.
38:51This is an artificial canal
38:52which was built
38:53by the Khmer people.
38:54So this is one of those
38:54canals we saw
38:55from the helicopter.
38:56Exactly, yeah.
38:56This is the big one
38:57that we saw
38:58from the helicopter yesterday.
38:59The important thing
39:00about this site
39:00is it shows us
39:01the difference
39:02between the water level
39:02of the river
39:03way down there
39:04and the original level
39:05way up there
39:06where we got out
39:06of the jeep.
39:08As the water receded,
39:10ancient technology
39:10like this
39:11could not have kept pace
39:12with the needs
39:13of the Khmer.
39:14As you can see
39:15not a huge amount
39:16of water actually
39:16comes out of this.
39:18These little tubes
39:18and the water
39:19that they contain
39:19obviously wouldn't
39:20have been enough
39:21to fill rice fields
39:21or the moats
39:22of temples like Angkor Wat
39:23on a regular basis.
39:24So what we're seeing
39:25is a drastic change
39:27in the canal structure
39:27over time.
39:28Exactly, yeah.
39:29I mean this is just
39:30a very clear example
39:31of a river down cutting
39:33and if you have
39:34the water down there
39:35and the rice fields
39:36and the moats
39:36that you need
39:37to feed the water
39:37into are way up there
39:38then obviously
39:39you're going to end up
39:39in deep trouble.
39:40This is just one example
39:41of it here
39:42but probably the clearest
39:43example of it
39:43is just up the river
39:44a little bit
39:45we should go take a look.
39:46Okay.
39:46To see hard evidence
39:47of what brought down
39:48the Khmer
39:49Damien and I
39:50jump in a boat.
39:56It's amazing to think
39:57that all of these
39:58canals are man-made.
40:00Yeah, it's actually
40:00difficult to imagine
40:01it when you're down
40:02here on the river
40:03you know once you get
40:03up there in the air
40:04you can really see
40:05that far from being
40:07a sort of natural course
40:08it's actually laid out
40:09in a very particular
40:10kind of way
40:10for a very particular
40:11kind of purpose.
40:18Damien points out
40:19that this hill
40:20represents the difference
40:21between what the
40:22water level of the river
40:23once was
40:24and what it is today.
40:25So what do we have here?
40:27Believe it or not
40:27this is actually a bridge.
40:28These are its arches
40:29right here.
40:30Would this then be the bridge
40:32for the canal
40:33that we just came up from?
40:34Exactly.
40:34A thousand years ago
40:35the water would have run
40:36straight down through here
40:37and passed beneath these
40:38arches onto the other side.
40:39So we're standing
40:40on the original bed
40:41of the canal.
40:42That's right.
40:43Increasingly as the years
40:44went on the water level
40:45cut down into the landscape
40:46and just basically
40:47ended up going around
40:48this bridge
40:48meaning it was
40:49completely ineffective.
40:50This is a drastic change.
40:52Is this happening
40:53all across the empire?
40:54It is.
40:54The thing is
40:55when you start to get
40:56unpredictable water flows
40:57things like flooding
40:58too much or too little water
40:59which starts to cause
41:00this down cutting
41:01and these diversions
41:02in the rivers
41:02then all of a sudden
41:03you end up with
41:04extremely serious problems.
41:05Is it fair to conclude
41:06from all of this
41:07that the Khmer
41:07could have over-engineered
41:08their empire?
41:09I think with the evidence
41:10that's coming to hand now
41:11from excavations
41:11and from the aerial surveys
41:13I think it really
41:14supports that conclusion
41:15so I think what you're
41:16saying is probably
41:16a fair assessment
41:17of what actually
41:18happened to you.
41:20The widespread failure
41:21of the Khmer's
41:22complex water system
41:23also left them
41:24vulnerable to attack.
41:26Their enemy to the north
41:27the Siamese
41:28successfully sacked
41:30Angkor in 1431.
41:32A year later
41:33the royal court
41:34and Khmer people
41:35abandoned this site.
41:37Moving south
41:38to where Cambodia's
41:39capital of Phnom Penh
41:40is today.
41:42For 600 remarkable years
41:45these temples
41:45were added to
41:46and adorned.
41:47With their abandonment
41:48in the mid-15th century
41:50however
41:50one of the world's
41:51greatest building programs
41:52came to an end.
41:54But unlike other
41:55lost civilizations
41:56that have succumbed
41:57to the jungle
41:58the Khmer's greatest temple
41:59Angkor Wat
42:00held on
42:01with the help
42:02of a very special
42:03group of people.
42:06The truth is
42:07this place
42:08was never
42:08fully abandoned.
42:10After Buddhism
42:10was adopted
42:11as a state religion
42:12this site
42:13became a place
42:14of pilgrimage.
42:18Even after
42:19the last Khmer king
42:20left
42:20the monks
42:21stayed
42:22and arduously
42:23worked to keep
42:24the forest
42:24from swallowing
42:25this great temple.
42:27and it's through
42:28their four centuries
42:29of effort
42:30that Angkor Wat
42:31is still here today.
42:34For many
42:35Angkor Wat
42:35evokes a romantic
42:37tale of a 19th century
42:38explorer
42:39stumbling upon
42:40a lost civilization.
42:41But I came here
42:42to plumb the deeper mystery
42:44to finally understand
42:45the real story
42:46behind the rise
42:47and fall
42:48of an amazing empire.
42:50Today
42:50the Cambodians
42:52are so proud
42:52of their legacy
42:53they're the only country
42:55to adorn their national flag
42:56with an image
42:57of a ruin.
42:59Angkor Wat
42:59the ultimate symbol
43:01of majesty
43:02and mystery.
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