Angkor under 'serious' threat from development: scientists
- From: Chim <ChimS1@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 01:33:03 -0700
Angkor under 'serious' threat from development: scientists
39 minutes ago
PHNOM PENH (AFP) - Uncontrolled development around Cambodia's Angkor
temples poses a serious threat to one of the region's great wonders,
said the archaeologists who this week revealed the full extent of the
site.
Angkor was a "vast and populous network ... stretching far beyond the
well known temples of the central archaeological park," said the
Greater Angkor Project (GAP) at the University of Sydney on its
website.
"Delicate traces of that network ... remain on the surface even today
and are of great archaeological significance, but are under serious
threat from uncontrolled development in the Siem Reap area," the group
warned.
The group on Monday published a paper saying that during its height of
power between the ninth and 14th centuries, Angkor -- covering about
1,000 square-kilometres (400 square-miles) -- was "the most extensive
city of its kind in the pre-industrial world."
Angkor was at least three times larger than archaeologists had
previously suspected, eclipsing comparable developments such as Tikal,
a Classic Maya "city" on the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico.
Using digital mapping to detail some 3,000 square-kilometres around
the temples, the group found evidence of an urban centre supported by
a complex series of canals and waterways that became too vast to
manage.
Deforestation and erosion caused as the city extended its rice fields
to feed its bloated population led to a collapse in infrastructure,
and Angkor was eventually abandoned.
The temples today remain Cambodia's largest tourist draw, attracting
almost one million visitors last year and bringing more than a billion
dollars to the impoverished country.
But along with the tourists has come a massive building boom in and
around the Siem Reap town -- the gateway to the temple complex.
Officials have long voiced concern over the effects of this explosion
of visitors on the temples themselves, but attention has now been
turned to development around the park.
Most seriously, huge hotels, along with dozens of smaller guesthouses
have begun to suck the area's water supply dry and have raised fears
that the temples could collapse as the earth beneath them is
destabilised.
According to GAP, its digital mapping database was presented to
Cambodia's Apsara Authority, the government's Angkor management group
in order "to safeguard the archaeological landscape."
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