Japanese archaeologists have found a man-made water channel in northwest Cambodia used for rituals as far back as the first century

Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2008


Japan team finds ancient Cambodian water site
SNAY VILLAGE, Cambodia (Kyodo) Japanese archaeologists said Monday
they have found a man-made water channel in northwest Cambodia used
for rituals as far back as the first century.

The archaeologists said they discovered sacred mounds or altars at the
ruins in Snay village in Banteay Meanchey Province under a two-year
project that began last January.

"Before, it was said that Khmer civilization started from the seventh
to ninth century AD, but based on our research here, Khmer
civilization went back to the first century AD," said Yoshinori
Yasuda, a professor of the International Research Center for Japanese
Studies in Kyoto.

"Khmer civilization established a very well-organized and harmonized
water system. They constructed a perfect water circulation system (up
to and including) the Angkor Wat period" between the ninth and 12th
centuries, Yasuda said.

He said that the discovered water channel may be the world's oldest,
or some 600 years older than the Tikal ruins in Guatemala in the
seventh to ninth centuries.

The site is located about 370 km northwest of Phnom Penh, or about 70
km west of Siem Reap Province, which is home to Angkor Wat.

Yasuda said the project is supported by the Tokyo Foundation, a unit
of the semipublic Nippon Foundation, and the Ministry of Education,
Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, in close cooperation with
Cambodia.

With 10 Japanese archaeologists and experts and 50 Cambodian staff,
the team excavated five sites last year, discovering 36 tombs, seven
pits and 156 pottery pieces.

This year, another 12 tombs were discovered, according to Yoshito
Miyatsuka, archaeologist and president of the Miyatsuka Institute of
Archaeology in Sapporo, who helped conduct field research on the site.
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