Jungle Atlantis
Millions of tourists visit Angkor Wat in Cambodia every year to marvel at its remarkable architecture, yet most are probably unaware that when it was built nearly 1,000 years ago it was even more impressive. Using remote sensing technology, scientists now know what is hidden beneath the nearby paddy fields and jungle: a sophisticated metropolis with an elaborate network of houses, canals, boulevards and temples covering 30 square kilometres that housed three-quarters of a million people. To put that into perspective, London at that time was home to just 18,000. These previously hidden finds tell us a great deal about life during the golden age of the powerful Khmer dynasty.
Seasons & Episodes
E1Angkor Wat's Hidden Megacity
Sep 25, 2014
A thousand years ago, the Khmer people of Cambodia built an empire and their capital was the great city of Angkor, with its centrepiece being Angkor Wat - a vast temple complex covering an area more than four times the size of the Vatican City. In the first of this two-part programme, an international team of archaeologists and scientists use revolutionary technology to reveal the true scale and extent of the lost metropolis and find out how its people lived and died.
E2Death of Angkor Wat's Megacity
Oct 2, 2014
The experts continue their attempt to discover why Angkor suddenly collapsed, using a revolutionary technology called lidar to reveal the true scale and splendour of this abandoned megacity. Deep in the Cambodian jungle, they have discovered a sophisticated network of roads and canals that are the forgotten world of Angkor's greatest king, shedding new light on the dramatic events leading to the fall of the city.
Storyline
Millions of tourists visit Angkor Wat in Cambodia every year to marvel at its remarkable architecture, yet most are probably unaware that when it was built nearly 1,000 years ago it was even more impressive. Using remote sensing technology, scientists now know what is hidden beneath the nearby paddy fields and jungle: a sophisticated metropolis with an elaborate network of houses, canals, boulevards and temples covering 30 square kilometres that housed three-quarters of a million people. To put that into perspective, London at that time was home to just 18,000. These previously hidden finds tell us a great deal about life during the golden age of the powerful Khmer dynasty.
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