Impressive Angkor

We've all seen photographs of Angkor Wat, the spectacular 12th century Khmer Temple in Cambodia. I was surprised to learn that Angkor Wat is just the tip of the iceberg-- that it was the center of an enormous, low-density urban complex whose size (1000 square km) rivaled large modern day cities.

Right before Spring Break, I attended a presentation by Roland Fletcher, an archaeologist from the University of Sydney who is leading up the Greater Angkor Project. This 10-year study is bringing new technologies to bear on the large questions surrounding the city of Angkor.

Using airborne side-looking radar (and other imaging from space), amazing features were revealed. From the presentation summary:

So far the project has mapped the extent of the water management system, has located key water management structures and has identified the dispersed pattern of occupation along canals and roads and on house-mounds. The demise of the urban complex now has to be reappraised because it was apparently functioning into the 16th century, later than the generally assumed sack in the early 15th century CE.

The scope of Angkor is startling. If you take a look at the feats of engineering the Khmer accomplished, one can't help but be amazed. The second photo in this post (click it for a larger view) is a satellite view of the temple of Angkor Wat, its grounds, and the large, square moat which surrounds it. You can see that the temple is dwarfed by the moat, and Dr. Fletcher tossed up a slide that showed the area inside the moat is larger than any Mayan city.

Not stopping there, you need to see the map of the entire Angkor complex (the 3rd image). The very center square on the map is Angkor Thom, the royal forest. Just below it, a tiny blue square represents the moat at Angkor Wat.

The long, rectangular blue features are man-made water reservoirs which supported the irrigation of the entire area. The West and East Baray (the two largest) are 8 kilometers in length. The NASA Earth Observatory has a large AIRSAR image of the Angkor region, plus an accompanying GIS map of all the archaeological features and sites.

What have they determined so far? It looks like the earlier theory (by Bernard-Philippe Groslier) that the large reservoirs were primarily for irrigation are correct. The radar imagery show the remnants of rice fields covering the entire region from the lake to the mountain foothills. A river was diverted to fill the reservoirs, and to irrigate the landscape. Excavations of old water channels has revealed evidence of heavy flooding (including substantial deposition of sand), which likely overwhelmed their system. It is possible that the deforestation of the area for conversion to agriculture, combined with the re-routed natural water channels, may have led to a large-scale ecological disaster.

One of the principal investigators (Damian Evans) was the lead author on a paper last year that reported on their comprehensive mapping (see below).


Additional resources:

1. Wikipedia has a nice overview of Angkor's history.

2. Evans, D., Pottier, C., Fletcher, R., Hensley, S., Tapley, I., Milne, A. and Barbetti, M. 2007. A comprehensive archaeological map of the world’s largest pre-industrial settlement complex at Angkor, Cambodia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Vol. 104 no. 36, pp. 14277-14282

3. The American Museum of Natural History has a nice animated overview of the current findings at Angkor.

Now I know that NAU's Anthropology Program is Selective

Here's what I have:

• forty-two credit hours in Anthropology coursework, GPA: 3.97
• A certificate that says I won the Undergraduate Research Assistantship award at ASU
• 4 weeks of archaeological field school experience
• 2 years of research work with a professor
• Glowing recommendations from two professors

Here's what I don't have:

• Acceptance in the graduate Anthropology program at Northern Arizona University.

I returned from a college-hunting trip (for my daughter) in Colorado to find two letters from NAU. The one from the Anthropology Department was somewhat friendly, stating that either my application was not competitive enough or that my research interests did not line up well with those of the professors in the department. The letter from the NAU Graduate College was much more blunt: "Your application was not competitive."

I've already asked the graduate coordinator to please explain to me the aspects of my application which failed to meet their standards, and hopefully this will be a productive thing. Right now, I'm still pretty depressed about the whole thing-- and I keep wondering which is true: 1. They just don't know me, or 2. I'm not good enough.

There are some good things I can take from this:

1. NAU's program really is pretty competitive! If I'd been accepted, I would not have know for sure.
2. You can always do a better job on your application. I've identified about twenty things I would do differently if I could (and I will do them for the next one).
3. I can finish my B.A. in Anthropology. Having the B.A. is a good thing-- it means I'll finish my foreign language work, and have a minimum credential for moving on to graduate studies. Who knows-- this may have worked against me at NAU.
4. I have plenty of time to finish my research with Dr. Martin. By May of next year, I'll have my B.A. and two publications.
5. I can still choose something other than Archaeology. I've been having doubts about choosing Archaeology as my subdiscipline, so now I have time to reconsider.
6. I have another year to pay off debt and save. If I'm planning to go part time at work, I better be as financially secure as I can be.

As depressing as this has been, I have to remember that I'm in the middle of a very demanding graduate seminar. Now I REALLY need to do well in this.

I couldn't help myself: I already registered for next semester at ASU. I'm taking the two remaining courses I need for my Anthro degree, except for the foreign language component. For Spanish, I'll take two summer sessions starting in June, and I'll have completed my four courses total by May of 2009. Yep, I should be able to graduate.

As for graduate school, I'll need to see what happens. I might still try the Online Masters in Applie dAnthropology at UNT, or I might commute to the U of A in Tucson. But for the next 15 months, I know I'll be right here at ASU.