What hidden cities did LiDAR technology reveal beneath the jungles around Angkor Wat?
Laser beams fired from helicopters revealed a sprawling medieval megacity hidden under Cambodian jungle - larger than modern-day Los Angeles.
The answer
In 2015, the Cambodian Archaeological Lidar Initiative (CALI) used airborne LiDAR to strip away dense jungle canopy around Angkor Wat, revealing a vast urban landscape that transformed our understanding of the Khmer Empire. The scans showed that medieval Angkor, dating from the 9th to 15th centuries CE, sprawled across over 1,000 square kilometers - making it the largest pre-industrial city ever discovered, larger than modern Los Angeles. The LiDAR data revealed elaborate water management systems, grid-patterned city blocks, highways, and previously unknown temple complexes. A 2024 follow-up study found evidence that the city's collapse around 1431 CE was linked to catastrophic infrastructure failure during extreme monsoon flooding events.
Source: The Guardian
- Angkor Wat
- LiDAR
- Khmer Empire
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