When it comes to ancient structures, science is basically blind to the past. For example, if an archaeologist finds 10th century BC pottery beside a wall, that does not mean the wall was built in the 10th century BC.
No amount of looking at the evidence, dating the artifacts, or any other scientific inquiry can detect an actual date. The wall could have been built at any time prior to, during, or long after the 10 century BC pottery was placed there.
Science cannot even tell if the pottery was placed next to the wall in the 10th century or if it was laid there much later than that. The same applies to Angkor Wat. here i one piece of evidence to support that statement:
Originally built as a Hindu temple dedicated to the god Vishnu, it was converted into a Buddhist temple in the 14th century, and statues of Buddha were added to its already rich artwork. Sometime later it was turned into a military fortification (source–this link)
As you can see the building served many purposes with the dominant thought of the time renovating the structure to fit their need. Who is to say that the Hindu ‘builders’ simply did not replace a previous people’s artifacts, statues, etc., with their own?
Since there are no accurate records, there is no way of knowing what the building looked like prior to the Hindu occupation. In fact, the original builder is not named in many documents and only legends exist to describe the person who commissioned the building.
Here is what one source has to say about who built this structure:
According to the famous legends of the land, the construction of Angkor Wat took place because of the order of eminent Indra. He wanted this place to be the enigmatic palace of his son Precha Ket Mealea. However, this obstructs the other famous legend by the 13th-century Chinese traveler Zhou Daguan. He strongly supported the idea that the Angkor Wat temple is the creation of a divine architect. He created the whole temple, within the time span of a single night. (source–this link)
As you can see, the legends do not agree. Then another source claims the following:
The city of Angkor served as the royal centre from which a dynasty of Khmer kings ruled one of the largest, most prosperous, and most sophisticated kingdoms in the history of Southeast Asia. From the end of the 9th century until early in the 13th century, numerous construction projects were undertaken, the most notable of which was Angkor Wat. It was built by Suryavarman II as a vast funerary temple within which his remains were to be deposited. Construction is believed to have spanned some three decades (source–this link)
We checked other sources as well and not one quoted from or pointed to any manuscript dating to the 10 to 12th century AD that documented this construction. We know that the structure was famous because at least one ‘Chinese envoy, Zhou Daguan, who visited Angkor in 1296–97 and wrote A Record of Cambodia‘ (from Amazon) of the site.
Yet, this is the only record anyone seems to have that was close to contemporary with Angkor Wat’s existence as a living city. In other words, no one knows who actually built it or why. The problem with using Zhou Daguan’s text is, according to the Amazon link, that much of his original text had been lost
Very little is known about Zhou Daguan. He was born on or near the southeastern coast of China, and was probably a young man when he traveled to Cambodia by boat. After returning home he faded into obscurity, though he seems to have lived on for several decades. Much of the text of Zhou’s book has been lost over the centuries, but what remains gives us a lively sense of Zhou the man as well as of Angkor (from Amazon)
Then as you can see by that description, nothing is known about the author and traveler. We do not even know if he was embellishing what he saw and exaggerating about this structure. this record, then, is really not a very good record and there is nothing else to in existence to verify his claims.
It would be foolish to take his word for it. For all anyone knows, the structure already existed by the time the Hindu ‘builders’ came into the area, and much like the Aztecs, they simply inherited the buildings and did not build them. Like the Pyramids of Egypt, the stones used to construct this site came from a quarry said to be 25 kilometers away
There is no record telling anyone if the people of the 10th to 12th century AD actually had the equipment and tools to cut, transport, erect, and finish the stone. it would be interesting to see if there are any such records and what they said.
The city where the temple was built, Angkor, is located in modern-day Cambodia and was once the capital of the Khmer Empire. This city contains hundreds of temples. The population may have been over 1 million people. It was easily the largest city in the world until the Industrial Revolution (source– this link)
We have no doubt that the Khmer civilization used these buildings. There are building sin use today occupied by modern citizens of different countries which were built hundreds of years prior to their birth.
We doubt the figures given in that quote as that is also impossible to estimate.
Angkor Wat itself is surrounded by a 650-foot-wide (200 m) moat that encompasses a perimeter of more than 3 miles (5 km). This moat is 13 feet deep (4 m) and would have helped stabilize the temple’s foundation, preventing groundwater from rising too high or falling too low (source– this link).
This moat could have been built at any time as well. Science is also incapable of finding out the details about this construction and when it took place.
In the early 15th century Angkor was abandoned (source- this link)
We almost hate to say it, but there are no records that we known of that detail any reason why this site was abandoned. That silence is telling. If the Khmer civilization were as good at construction as archaeologists and scientists claim, then why couldn’t they leave written records describing their feat?
The argument that they were illiterate does not hold up. The civilization would need some sort of blueprint to construct these buildings. It would not and could not be done orally. If the Khmer civilization was illiterate then we doubt they could have constructed this set of buildings. Here is what illiterate means:
unable to read and write: an illiterate group.having or demonstrating very little or no education.showing lack of culture, especially in language and literature.
theoarch 