Why was Angkor Wat built?
Mountain for a King
Why was Angkor Wat built?
Deep in the Cambodian jungle stands a temple so massive, so covered in stone carvings of gods and battles and dancing figures, that when you first see it rising above the trees you might wonder: why would anyone build something this enormous? The answer takes us back nine hundred years, to a king with a very particular dream.
In 1113, a new king named Suryavarman II took the throne of the Khmer Empire — a kingdom that controlled much of Southeast Asia. He wanted to do what great kings before him had done: build a temple. But not just any temple. This one would be bigger, more perfect, more beautiful than anything his ancestors had managed. It would prove he was the greatest king the Khmer had ever known.
