Found Inside a Jungle: The Mysterious Beng Mealea Temple in Cambodia | Ancient Architects
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 มิ.ย. 2024
- If ever there was a spectacular ancient site that looks like a set from an Indiana Jones movie, it would have to be the Beng Mealea temple in Cambodia, located 40 km east of he main group of temples at Angkor, but now lost within dense covering of trees and overgrowth.
Although it is widely referred to as the Jungle Temple, Beng Mealea means Lotus Pond, and it was originally built as a Hindu temple, but does display Buddhist motifs in places. It is located at the centre of an ancient Angkorian road that connected Angkor Thom and Preah Khan.
The sandstone temple is a complete ruin, largely unrestored with thick brush and large trees thriving amidst the towers and courtyards as nature continues to run riot year after year. Stones can be found lying in great heaps and although it does have historical importance, it is only on the UNESCO Tentative List for World Heritage Status.
Watch the video to see some truly stunning pictures, and to learn more about this early 12th century wonder that is being swallowed up by nature.
All images are taken from Google Images for educational purposes only. Please subscribe to Ancient Architects, Like the video, and please leave a comment below. Thank you.
#AncientArchitects #BengMealea #AngkorWat
I’ve spent the week trying to decipher and then understand some weird graffiti in the Great Pyramid, which I’ve now finally done and have come to a conclusion. I’ll be getting that video ready for Friday this week. In the meantime, as I continue to slowly clean up the channel and re-do the audio/contents/thumbnails to bring it in-line with my branding and thinking, here is another video more than a year old. I call it “remastered” content 😂 Thanks for being here.
I really appreciate the care your taking with the channel my friend!
@@blackmetalpaganbushcraft9542
I AGREE!!!
looking forward to Friday for a new reason, Matt! thanks!
Awesome Matt❤👑❤
Appreciate everything you've doing my friend.
Take care🖐
@@catman8965 Wonderful place to learn about.
Hope you have a nice day Cat Man.
🙂
I MUST go there! ❤❤❤
I know! Talk about a place to explore!
SECOND to post
on an
Ancient Sites posting
on an
Ancient Architect channel
LOL
ALL THE BEST!!😾
Yes Irena! "Would love to see you there, a la Lara Croft."
Stay safe.
🕊💙🕊
Job for someone else not me - I never did like jigsaw puzzles ! The quality of the masonry work looks exceptional.
Cambodia seems to be where nature goes hardest on Great ruins and gives the best example that roots and water are stronger than stone.
The Angkor wat complex was a huge forest not so long ago, now due to the high wood price, its slowly being revealed. Its amazing to see big ass trees growing out of the ruins.
I love these videos. It's nice to see these temples being unveiled. It's like opening a gift that lay unopened for many hundreds of years.
❤❤❤❤❤👍👍👍
It's a beautiful temple and was a pleasure to visit some 5 or 6 years ago.
In addition to the usual attention to architectural details, with diagrams, these videos are developing a distinct travel documentary vibe that is very welcome due to the deleterious effect of the pandemic. Some, like this one, would need very little, if any, modification to become ASMR.
When depressing issues occur, I find these most excellent videos comforting. Do keep up the excellent work!
Was just there yesterday. I am Canadian but moved to Cambodia 7 years ago. Love it here.
It is a haunting and evocative site, blending back into nature as it is. Thanks for the video Matt!
I always enjoy your videos, amazed by the beautiful and mysterious places I'll never see in person. Thanks, Matt.
Very good content, as usual. I enjoyed that. Thanks. 👍👍
Thank you for your work.
Thank you for being here!
I've actually been to this Temple twice. I live in Siem Reap with my Khmer wife. It is very beautiful.
You are from the states? How is it being an expat there?
@@lessforloans the only way I can describe living here is,*Absolute Magic*. 1) Every day is a holiday. 2) *zero* gun violence, only the Army & Police are allowed to have firearms. The police are always respectfully and helpful. Money goes a long way. I married a local Khmer lady & built my own home we designed together for $35,000 & have an amazing circle of friends. I just love it.
@@texgowing7359 that’s awesome. I am most assuredly in love with my 2nd amendment though
@@lessforloans Gato, the second amendment was written when people carried muskets to shoot game to feed their families & also to protect their homes. It is out dated & desperately needs amending. Why would anyone need to go to a supermarket open carrying an assault weapon, yes to the 2nd amendment but also yes to common sense.
Lucky guy 👍👍👍👍😁
Amazing! Both the temple and the video...😉👍👍💖💖
It has been hypothosized that Ankor Wat was huge and is estimated to have had up to 1 million people living there. Could this location just be an extension of Ankor Wat?
Still absolutely stunning!
Our ancestors were amazing. It is extremely sad of how low my country has fallen.
Thank you for your Research and sharing ♥️
You're da man! 😎👊
Love learning about these temples in Cambodia.
That was fascinating, thank you. Very best wishes to you and yours👋🌟💯✌
Great video about an obscure wonder. Thanks, Matt.
Cheers 🍻 thanks for the new video!
Thanks for watching
I see all the damage.... and I have an overwhelming urge to go there and restack blocks. Overwhelming! Thanks Mate!!
Wouldn’t it be fantastic to go back and observing how these people lived, raised their children and worshiped Vishnu a thousand years ago.
Mind blowing stuff, luv it !
Thanks for watching 👍
I love your intro music, if I'm in a quiet place and don't want to start a loud video if my volume is high, I use your video as a sound check.
I'd love to visit these places. Amazing!
Beautiful. I've been to Angkor Wat but not this one. Great vid ;)
Great video
🤘🥰🤘... Indiana Jones. You Totally Rock Mr. Ancient Architect's!! Much Appreciated. ❤️
i'm sitting watching the video , thinking i've seen this somewhere else before lol . nice clean up job Matt . looking forwardto the pyramid video on Friday now .. thanks for the heads up
Yeah, thanks. The pyramid video took a while to get to the bottom of - but I’m there now!
Absolutely Magnificent 💐🕊❤️🔥🙏
Thanks Mat. Have seen it in movies. Would love to go there.
I'm trying to understand what is going on with the building/structure in the shot around 3:16...almost looks like a rebuild or repair of sorts- and I always love the mandalas carved on the snakes' chests as you can see at about 3:38- I think it was Praveen Mohan who suggested those may be cymatic in nature. Always thought that was an interesting take on the designs/patterns there.
Thank you, Matt, for consistently bringing such fascinating ancient history to the fore!
I visited this place in 2018, hardly any tourists. Very peaceful.
interesting, precision stonework
Thank you for the information. I don't think I have heard of this place before. It is very interesting.
It’s an amazing site
I've been there twice.
@@AncientArchitects thank you
i visited here because of your video on Koh Korh thanks for the ideas
Looks like earthquake damage to me. But it could also be damage caused by roots pressing the stones apart.
The bore holes on many of the blocks are interesting. They are arranged in regular and yet not too precice patterns, clearly proving usage of hand guided drills. What kind of connectors were inserted there?
Maybe the most interesting feature of Southeast Asian temples are the pillars in the windows. Were they ever researched in detail? I'd like to know how precise they really are. How close to being perfectly round are they? How precise are the repeated patterns of their shapes? How similar are they to each other? The actual level of precision can tell a lot about the technology being used.
They look like they were made on a lathe. But lathing stone is not as easy as it sounds. Stone is not being cut with a sharp tool like wood or metal, it actually is grinded. A stone lathe works best when the grinding tool also spins. I suspect the pillars were made in a very basic lathe to be able to turn them easily but the actual grinding tools were very simple, handguided tools. It must have been a rather slow process that required a lot of measuring and still there should be differences of several millimeters between the dimensions of each pillar.
Nature retakes everything if nothing is done! Very interesting to see what this might have been though so many years ago.
Great stuff, as usual.
I like your videos on Hindu temples. Definitely Masters of masonary.
Didnt u do a video on this before? Either im tripping or ive seen this exact vid a while back. Definitely remember u mentioning the wooden walkways
Thank you.
My favourite temple, I’ve been there 5 times from 2009-2020 taken friends twice and my son the last time.
I’ve done several sketches and done the walk around the outside…
Well worth making the trip from Siem Reap in a Tuk tuk….a great adventure
have you done a video on the Plain of Jars in Laos yet? They recently found another plain of jars in Eastern India. You should check it out.
Oo, in Angkor Wat, the pillars at the ‘windows’ casts a shadow of the horizontal aspect of the entire site! (Source: Praveen Mohan). I wonder if this happens here too 🤔 We’d be able to,at least, get a good idea of what the outline of the site looked like when it was first built. Exciting stuff.
Thanks for another great upload 🕊
My ancestors built that. It's amazing and inspiring to see such a thing
Are you sure?
sure pal. your ancestors are the hill tribes who moved in once the indians left, you didn't build anything.
the phoenicians/seapeoples built it.
@@romeisfallingagain Hindu
@@Fuzzmo147 nope. the phoenicians/seapeoples bred with the hindus. hindus are part of the serpent tribes. its recorded in the hindus ancient records/religion.
I got one of those in the woods behind my house. Cambodian monks settled this area in the late 1800s when they came up here to cut down every tree in their path.
That place is jacked up 🌑☄🔥🌊
It does resemble King Louie's palace....
All the tumbled stone indicates great earthquake activity over the ages since it was built in the 13th century. Just consider structures and towns from that time still in existence in Europe such as great cathedrals, parts of Paris, London, Amsterdam etc.
Sharing
It just hit me.. are all the stone blocks falling towards one specific direction? Or is it just sporadicaly in each and all directions?
2000 mules is a MUST WATCH
Battlefront 2 has a map based off this area. No clue how accurate it is but it looks very similar. Enough to recognize it instantly.
i wonder how many more of these are yet to be found? seems like they had more "temples" than was necessary. and, you said the king and family lived upstairs and advisors and such down. i thot this was a temple? maybe both a temple and a palace? interesting place, for sure. i thot i saw Indie, too! HA!
see you Friday, right? cool! deciphered ancient grafiti!
Khmer pride 🇰🇭🙏
cool
beautiful carvings. sad to see it go but that is what nature does when humans leave.
What I don't understand is why they left such a beautiful place. Was there a famine or an invasion and they had to flee or what?
Kind of sad to see all of the deforestation around the temple.
Its so good to see they spent the hollywood millions of dollars on a 10 meter walkway, well worth the money !
Boom!
It looks on the cusp of being both rescued and lost to obscurity
Visited here, around 2014 still not visit by many tourist.
Wtf? How were those lathe perfect pillars not mentioned on an ‘architects’ channel?!?! How old was this again?🤔 This temple was just wow on so many levels
From the tomb raider movie?
I'm curious about the use of sandstone, which can be notoriously hard.. What kind of tools and methods were used and do they match the known tools used by the supposed builders? 🤔
Why do they let these trees wreak ''riot'' on these buildings?
👀👍
👍
I live in Cambodia and this temple has been known by locals for a long time, the new road you talk about was built with chinese investment money. The whole area is covered with hidden temples but slowly one by one they are being turned into tourist hell holes.
Why do you say hell holes
Reminds me more of the Jungle Book, than it does Indiana Jones
Didn't you do this before? I seem to remember the "Indiana Jones" bit before. Maybe I'm wrong.
See pinned comment :)
@@AncientArchitects
It's good that you remind us. It's too easy for these sites to remain abandoned.
"Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill Shall come against him."
They’ve really cleared that area of trees huh
What's the purpose of the moats and lakes? Moat wouldn't seem to be needed for protection?
Triffid Attack!!!
4.01min this is no Lion carved statues in this temple, the picture if the lion is taken in the Angkor park 60 kilometers away...
I was hear in 2004, probably right after they built the walkways.
Next: Nan Madol.
Beng May-a lay-a...
You say Indiana Jones, but isnt this the temple where one of the Lara Croft movies was shot?
He used to fly weekends
It was the easy life
Your house plants sit mute and still, yet they plot your destruction with every ticking of the clock...
Hurriedly removing all terracotta potted nemeses out and to the furthest corners of my garden!
Guess what day it is tomorrow... The day of the Triffids!
@@sofa-lofa4241 Aaaassssssssssssh!
No watering!
Remnants of an antediluvian civilization.
I believe you and your viewers would be interested in seeing the Ancient Temple in the city of Baalbek in Lebanon, it is the beautiful enormous "Temple of Bacchus."
The Temple of Bacchus is on the scale of the Great Pyramids in Egypt (Kemet).
It is to bad that we humans cannot just only study for the rest of our lives God, Nature, history of humans and Ancient Architecture, Science, Medicine, Caring for our elders and one another. And forever put away Wars and Fighting. ☀️🌟🌍🌙
3rd... sorry just had to 😘
That’s absolutely fine
Star wars battle front 2
Yavin 4
😂
I think I saw this Angkor Temple on one of the macaque monkey channels that fed monkeys there, snatched monkeys & dumped baby monkeys after they grew not cute for videos. Daddy Sekor channel or something. There are tons of Cambodian monkey channels.
I found something in Egypt on Google Maps
I uploaded the video on my find
A real fixer-upper but I would live there 🤣
2nd
Hi Merlin!
Another one that needs a good pressure wash. We could start a business!
It was duh aliens brah.
scientist 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝💝
०Lािॐ
This is a reupload, you chetah.
Let the place disappear, just not interesting enough. Let’s go back to Turkey 😃
Great video