WEBVTT - Why did Angkor fall? 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:03.760 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:13.800 Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:16.760 I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Dowdy. And if you've 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:19.160 been listening to the podcast, you know how much Katie 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:22.479 and I love a good lost city. We've talked about 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:25.480 Atlantis recently, and a little while before that we talked 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:29.480 about the North Chico in South America. So these cities 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:33.800 that disappear, or empires that appear out of nowhere and 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:38.240 then disappear again seemed to fascinate us. So today we're 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:41.360 going to do the lost city of Anchor. And when 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:43.319 Sarah said this earlier, I was like, oh, you want 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:45.800 to talk about Anchor Watt and she said, no, there's 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:48.479 a lot more to it than that's just one temple, Katie. 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:51.800 So today it's ruins and peasants who grow rice in 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:54.480 northwestern Cambodia. That's what you think of when you're thinking 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:57.520 of Ancre Watt. But back in medieval times it was 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:00.639 something else. It was a very impress us, a very 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:04.560 huge city with a lot of amazing works of engineering. 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:08.120 But what went wrong? Well, to do that, let's start 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:10.720 out with a little bit of background on Anchor, which 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:13.800 starts in a D. Eight hundred and Sarah was saying, 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:16.520 it's lovely to be able to start with one person 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:21.080 instead of the people from this river came and exactly 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:24.479 nice to have one warrior type guy coming into the 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:27.399 picture early on. And in this case it's a powerful 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:31.960 regional king named Jaya Armand Too. And Jaya Armand consolidated 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:35.560 the chiefdoms in Cambodia and he formed the Kingdom of Anchor, 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:40.200 and he's the one who decides that the Khmer royalty, 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:44.360 the Cambodian royalty, would be linked to the gods, creating 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:47.760 the cult of the devil Rajah, which is literally the 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:51.680 god king or king of the gods. So this proves 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:54.680 to be a very important part of our story, this 0:01:54.920 --> 0:02:00.440 close relationship between the the king's and the gods, and 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:03.520 the monuments they would build to both themselves and to 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:06.920 the gods. Right and Anchor is his capital, the capital 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:10.000 of the Khmer or Cambodian Empire from the ninth century 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:12.639 to the fifteenth century a d. Which is known as 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:16.560 the Classical era of Cambodian history. And we are going 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:19.400 to have a little bit of river people descendant. So 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:22.639 we started with the king, but the people were descended 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:26.920 from the Funan of the Mekong Delta and the Khmer 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:31.639 Empire is highly influenced by Hinduism and Buddhism and that 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:36.000 comes from centuries old contact with Indian traders, but they 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:39.200 still retain some of their traditional religions. They kind of 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:42.720 blended blended it all together, right. And this is a 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:45.359 huge territory, we should add. It goes from the tip 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:48.480 of the Indo Chinese Peninsula north to the modern Yunnan 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:52.119 Province in China and from Vietnam westward towards the Bay 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:55.120 of Bengal, which all sounds completely insane. But the city 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:57.720 of Anchor was bigger than Rhode Island, if that gives 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:01.320 you an idea. Yeah. And for such a huge city, 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:05.760 they fund huge construction projects. And the biggest one that 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:10.000 Katie mentioned earlier, Anger Watt, probably the most famous um. 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:13.160 It's a temple complex that was built in the twelfth century. 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:17.919 There's also Anchored Tom, another temple complex which was built 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:22.799 in twelve hundred by King Jaya Armand the seventh. And 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:26.120 it's after that King Jai of Armand the Seventh when 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:30.919 Angor starts to go downhill, and by fourteen thirty one 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:35.080 it's been partially abandoned. By the time the Portuguese come 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:39.200 on the scene Portuguese missionaries in the sixteenth century, the 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:43.040 empire is thoroughly on its way out. The kings of 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:45.200 Anchor do come back for a little bit in the 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:51.200 sixteenth century, but not for long. So we're wondering what happened. 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:55.960 But in the meantime, Angor lies. I don't want to 0:03:55.960 --> 0:04:01.160 say forgotten, because Anchor Watt is maintained by um monks 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:05.600 and hermits, and it's considered an important pilgrimage site in 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:09.680 Southeast Asia all through these sort of down years. But 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:14.480 I think the um vastness of the city of Anchor 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:19.360 is forgotten, at least ignored. Some travelers who um quote 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:22.640 unquote discovered Anchor thought they'd found a lost city founded 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:25.120 by Alexandra the Great or the Roman Empire. They knew 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:28.600 nothing about it. But the French colonial regime in Cambodia 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:33.120 uh found the site, not found it, but they started 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:36.760 getting interested in it in the eighteen sixties and they 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:40.240 partially restored the temples and the reservoirs and canals that 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:45.719 lays through this mammoth complex of anchor and published a 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:50.680 French explorer Andri Muo actually reintroduces the temples to the 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:55.080 West with a journal travels in Siam, Cambodia and Laos 0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:57.760 and to bring it up to the present time and 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:00.240 the twentieth century. Of course, there's a lot of war 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:04.039 and upheaval in Cambodia, and there's war damage done to 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:07.040 the site. There's theft, but mostly a lot of neglect 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:09.719 because it's too dangerous of a place for most people 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:11.960 to go to. Yeah, and take care of it, right. 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:15.440 There's engulfing vegetation and erosion, and Sarah made me look 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:18.800 at pictures of strangler figs, which are completely insane. Just 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:25.120 imagine um, it's like a vine flash tree just engulfing 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:29.440 these stone temples. It's ridiculous, So google image that. Yeah, 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:32.640 and in nineteen two becomes a World Heritage Site, which 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:36.479 is a great step to preserving any kind of cultural 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:40.440 monument like this. And by nine it was scammed by 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:43.880 the radar of space Shuttle Endeavor, which turns out to 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:50.760 be a very important key to anchors understanding later on 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:53.159 in the podcast, because there's so much more that we 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:56.320 didn't know about. But let's go back and figure out 0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:59.080 what Anchor was like and why we should care about it. 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:02.919 So during the medieval times, the canear erected thousands of 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:07.279 shrines and Anchor and went on a building spree. And 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:12.000 the city it's not just built haphazardly. It's very much 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:15.880 tied to the Hindu idea of the universe. The city 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:20.279 of Ankor actually was a symbolic universe itself that was 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:24.640 structured according to the Hindu cosmology. So, for example, the 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:29.479 outer walls of the temples are meant to recall mountains 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:33.760 that were believed to edge the world, and the reservoirs 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:36.840 and canals and moats that lace through the cities are 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:39.440 meant to symbolize the waters of the cosmos. So it's 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:43.120 a pretty cool idea to to model your city on 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:46.120 the universe. Yes, city planners take note. I'm pretty sure 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:49.279 Atlanta wasn't designed that, though I don't think so. The 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:52.920 temples weren't only religious centers. They were also commercial centers, 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:55.640 and many of them operated as small cities, while other 0:06:55.680 --> 0:06:59.360 ones as larger cities. There were up to swhere around 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:02.760 seven in fifty thousand people in Anchor, which was the 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:05.719 capital of the Khmer Kingdom, and it is the most 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:11.440 extensive urban complex of the pre industrial world, so small accomplishment. 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:16.280 We only have one firsthand account, though, of what Angor 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:20.400 was really like, and that's from Zo Daguan, a Chinese 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:24.080 diplomat who visited at the end of the thirteenth century, 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:26.600 and you can find parts of his account on Google 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:29.680 Books if you searched for it. But he discusses a 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:32.640 little bit about the city itself and some about city life. 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:35.080 He talks about entering the city and there's a moat 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:38.120 surrounding it with a border of fifty four giants holding 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:42.440 a snake. There's a golden bridge, gilded lions, a pavilion 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:46.280 supported by stone elephants, um a bronze Buddha in a 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:49.240 lake with water coming out of its belly button. We've 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:54.520 also got stories about fireworks and bore fighting, royal processions 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:58.680 with elephants, horses clad in gold, palace women and flowers. 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:02.520 It all sounds very a luxurious We shouldn't only look 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:04.880 at that side of the account, though. The life for 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:09.680 your average peasant in Anger probably wasn't really great. You 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:13.320 would likely work really hard on the temple because constant 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:19.240 building freeze require constant work from peasants. Uh, you grow 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:23.040 a lot of rice to pay tributes because the whole 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:28.360 system relied on rice's currency. And you'd also probably be 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:32.120 drafted into war because there were constant wars with the 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:36.719 armies in Thailand and Champa, which is Vietnam today. But 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:39.440 he also does talk a little bit about middle class life. 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:42.200 So that would be me and you, Sarah. And the 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.320 house he's staying at has matting but no tables, chairs, 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:48.679 or beds. They cook rice over a clay stove and 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:51.679 they sit on mats and eat from ceramic plates and 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:54.680 drink wine from tin cups that's made out of honey, 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:58.199 rice leaves, and water. They sleep on mats on the floor, 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:00.679 and apparently it's so hot people got during the night 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:03.800 to bathe, and a few families all share a ditch 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:05.800 as a latrine, and when it's full, they would dig 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:08.800 another one or have a slave to it. Apparently wealthy 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:11.280 families had more than a hundred slaves each, which they 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:13.680 got from the uplands, and they spoke came here, but 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:17.200 they had no rights. And the other thing I thought 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:20.640 was really interesting was what happened when two families fought. 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:23.520 They would take a member from each family and stick 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:25.880 them each in a tower, and then after a certain 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:27.480 period of time, you would get to come out of 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:30.520 confinement and they would look to see what sort of 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:33.559 ailments you'd had. You know, perhaps you'd had a fever 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:36.280 or some other sickness, and that's how they determined who 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:40.400 was guilty. It's so weirdly passive. I keep thinking of 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:42.480 Funny Python and the Holy Grail because I tried to 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:44.600 apply that to most things. But you know, I figure 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:47.080 out whether she's a which, figure out who's guilty, and 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:50.640 the king's punishments could range from a fine to crushing 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:53.240 your limbs. So I hope you weren't the one who 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:58.000 got the fever. And they also collected human goal from 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:01.160 I've read that too. That was weird with the thought 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:05.000 to give both men and elephants courage. And if you 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:06.959 were a person who needed courage, you could drink it 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:08.840 mixed with wine. If you were an elephant, you would 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:11.200 have it poured over you in a different mixture. But 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:14.440 they had a commoner way would be the best way 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:16.720 to go. There was someone who was supposed to drink, 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:21.360 so you know, human goal courage for elephants. Things you learned, 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:25.640 but Unfortunately, this amazing account we have from Zoo is 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:29.560 that's it. We have things that were carved on the 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:33.280 stone temples, but all of the administrative buildings and the 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:37.600 homes from the highest person to the lowest were made 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:40.800 of wood, and consequently you haven't survived. So we have 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:43.760 very little to go on when we're trying to figure 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:49.080 out how ankor fell. What happened, and the historically suspected 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:55.400 causes are invaders, religion changes, maritime trade kind of shuts 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:59.600 down the coastal city, and um, so we have to 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:01.960 get us, which is one of those use your own 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:06.200 ending podcast. We're going to give you some options and 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:08.240 you can pick what you think makes the most sense. 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:12.600 So one option is rivalry. The Canary kings each had 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:15.920 a few wives and several children, and so there were 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:19.080 constant battles over which baby would be the king, and 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:22.320 plenty of usurpers to the throne. As Sarah said, it 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:26.040 was like the War of the Roses times Azilian. Imagine 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:28.959 just never knowing who was going to be the next king. 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:32.080 That puts a lot of no clear line of succession. Yeah, 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:36.800 and then another potential problem was war. Some think that 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:41.880 the warriors from the Iataiah state sacked Anchor in and 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:45.600 they did invade the city and made off with a 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:49.120 lot of treasure in women, but they probably didn't completely 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:52.720 destroy the city. Well, obviously they didn't completely destroy We 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:57.120 have some less um, they didn't damage it severely, And 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:01.319 some historians think that's unlikely because as the ruler of 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:04.600 the Aetayah installs his son on the throne, So why 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:08.800 would you completely sack the city and destroy most of 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:11.600 it if you're installing your son on the throne. And 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:16.000 that brings us to option three, which is religion. Anthropologists 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:19.160 call Anchor the regal ritual city. They love religion, it's 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:21.640 a big part of their daily lives, and the kings 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:24.720 are the world emperors of Hindu lore. But by the 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:29.840 thirteenth and fourteen centuries, Terravada Buddhism starts to surpass Hinduism, 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:33.520 and it preaches social quality, which isn't something that was 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:37.040 a big part of life in Anchor. So perhaps slaving 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:39.080 away at growing rice just to give it to the 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:43.080 king for his um gilded elephant processions doesn't sounds so 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:46.560 appealing anymore. No, it really didn't, because that whole regal 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:50.360 ritual thing relied on tribute and taxes, so you were 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:54.680 paying for these insanely luxurious ceremony and as we already said, 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:58.920 the currency is rice, so you're growing huge amounts of 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:03.840 rice to feed priests and the dancers and the concubine, yeah, 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:07.640 the temple workers. And it just, uh, this is a 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:12.679 plausible explanation for why this society would collapse bolts. But 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:16.840 we have another option. That's that it was just plain abandoned, 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:21.000 that the royal court ditched the city. And this is 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:25.040 plausible because the rulers were obsessed with building their own 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:27.600 new temples, they wouldn't take care of the old ones. 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:32.800 Most of our kind of cultural monuments, at least public monuments, 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:36.440 there is a certain amount of upkeep and um, and 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:40.600 you know people people like things that are old. But 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:44.560 that was not the case with the Anchor rulers. You 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:46.720 knew they would just let the old ones fall into 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:49.920 into decay. Kind of reminded me a little bit about 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:52.600 the It kind of reminded me a little bit of 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:57.400 the Egyptian pharaoh's pilfering the rocks from the old pyramids 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:02.360 and stuff. But so it's possible that the rulers just 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:06.440 left the town headed to a location closer to the 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:11.880 Mekong River, which is near Cambodia's modern capital of PanAm Pen, 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:17.800 and that way they could have easier sea trading and um, 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:20.800 just move on with the times. But there is an 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:25.760 even more modern theory, which is water trouble. The empire's 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:29.520 growth depended on huge rice harvests, and to do that, 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:32.760 of course, you need a steady water supply. And we 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:37.360 mentioned earlier how good it engineering this particular empire was, 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:43.240 but it wasn't just engineering amazing tempo complexes and things 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:46.800 to worship their rulers and gods. We were talking about 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:50.320 all the canals and the reservoirs, and that does more 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:56.600 than symbolize the Hindu cosmology of oceans and water. They 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:02.240 also were legitimate reservoirs and the uh. There's a great 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:05.320 article in the National Geographic from a few months back 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:10.320 by Richard Stone which puts forth the idea that the 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:15.000 civilization rose because they figured out a way to manage 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:18.600 the monsoon season, which you know, it's kind of an 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:21.080 on or off rain switch, right, And once you're not 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:24.200 dependent on the weather like that, you have time to 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:26.920 do things like build great civilizations. Yeah, because you can 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:30.200 increase your rice yields. You can grow during times of 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:32.280 year where you normally wouldn't be able to grow rice. 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:35.840 And so this theory suggests that they rose to prominence 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:40.040 because they figured out how to manipulate this, and that 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:44.880 maybe they fell because they lost that control. They built 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:47.480 one reservoir you talked about. I think that's what five 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:51.080 miles long by one and a half miles wide the Westbury. Yeah, 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:55.040 these aren't huge. If you see a picture of it, 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:59.160 it I mean, I can't even compare it to a 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:02.120 pool or something like that. It looks like a lake, 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:06.840 except that it's perfectly rectangular. And here's how it worked. 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:10.480 During the summer monsoon months, the overflow channels took care 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:13.120 of the excess water to save it for later. The 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:16.840 rain stopped in October November, and the irrigation channels dispensed 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:20.040 the stored water. So, yeah, you can grow rice when 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:23.680 you shouldn't be able to, and you're not going to 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:26.600 be quite as flooded as you normally would be during 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:29.800 the monsoon season. And one of the ways that we 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:34.480 figured out how these reservoirs worked, where those NOWSA images 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:38.320 we were talking about or endeavor, and they were great 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:42.360 because they showed areas that were still inaccessible because of 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:46.880 violence and Cambodia or just lawlessness in certain areas. And 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:51.080 the images showed that the berets or these big reservoirs 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:54.880 had inlets and outlets, so that proved that they were 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:59.440 for irrigation, they weren't just for religious purposes. But by 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:03.920 the early thirteenth century, the waterworks began to deteriorate, and 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:06.879 we're not quite sure why that happened. It might have 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:10.080 been that floods broke some of the masonry, or it 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:14.119 just became two massive a system for the engineers to handle. 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:17.160 You can kind of think of Atlanta's own sewer system, 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:22.119 which a massive overhaul. Yeah, there's there's not much you 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:26.240 can do about it unless you embark on a massive overhaul, 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:28.760 and they might have not been equipped to do that, 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:34.520 as we're not either. But um, the thirteenth century surprised 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:37.159 people because it was a little early for the trouble 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:39.560 to start. If you're paying attention to the timeline anchor 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:42.960 was still around in the sixteenth century. Yeah, but here's 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:47.200 what suspected to have happened. So while the waterworks are 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:53.679 in disrepair. That's a problem, but maybe manageable if you 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:58.639 still have a regular monsoon season. But unfortunately their disrepair 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:03.960 coincides perfectly with the beginning of the Little Ice Age, 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:07.040 and that's something that people have long known happened in 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:11.000 Europe starting in and going on for a couple of centuries. 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:18.919 It contributed to really abnormally cold winters and unseasonably cold summers, 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:23.359 and but until recently people didn't know if this also 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:27.200 extended to Asia, and it definitely did, and it made 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:30.920 Anchor experience these mega droughts. Sometimes there was no monsoon 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:34.480 at all, sometimes there was huge monsoon. Basically nothing you 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:37.120 can plan against, and if you're already falling apart, you're 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:38.719 not equipped to handle it. So if you have an 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:44.440 unstable monsoon season and um water works that are failing, 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:48.800 you can't guarantee a harvest. And we know that the 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:52.480 Little Ice Age did hit Asia in part because of Poemu. 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:56.119 I think that's how you say it. Cypress tree rings. Um. 0:18:56.200 --> 0:18:59.680 Some of these trees are nine centuries old, so they 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:03.320 were around in the height of anger and in its fall, 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:09.120 and they show stress, like major stress from the monsoons. 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:12.520 Heavy monsoons, no monsoons, and of course with all of 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:15.639 this water trouble, we end up with a low rice yield, 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:19.800 which could lead to starving turmoil, a week army and 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:22.879 so on. And so that's why they choose your own ending. 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:25.200 Any of them could really be right because we can 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:30.440 have this water centered answer. But if your people are 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:34.520 starving because there's no water to grow rice, or you know, 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:38.360 you're flooded out and you can't grow rice, um your 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:43.560 army is underfed, you're more susceptible to the Iataia invaders. 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:47.280 And it kind of ties all the all the endings 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:51.280 together in an interesting way. And there's another environmental theory 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:54.879 about environmental degradation causing the fall of Anchor, which was 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:58.480 about deforestation and over using the land, which some people 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:02.000 think led to flood and silted canals, which are really 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:04.760 no good. Yeah, if you silt silt up your water works, 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:08.080 they're not going to really do you any good anymore. Well, 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:12.120 all of these possibilities are interesting to ponder. Hopefully we'll 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:14.439 have a chance to figure out the real answer. Now 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:18.239 that Cambodia is open for tourism. Yeah, it's actually a 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:22.000 big source of money for Cambodia. Now, which you know 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:24.760 couldn't really have much of a tourist trade for decades 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:29.080 because of war and internal strife. But um unfortunately the 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:33.320 tourism also threatens the structural integrity of the temples. There's 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:36.400 always a double down. But the same thing about POMPEII. 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:38.480 We're reading about people coming to see POMPEII and then 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:41.640 touching every Yeah, they're winning it. Erosion problems from just 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:46.840 physical contact, but also new resorts and hotels springing up 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:52.520 are supposedly sucking the groundwater dry beneath Ancor, which weakened 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:55.440 some of the foundations of the buildings. And if you're 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:58.920 looking to go loot some antiquities, there actually aren't many 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:01.919 left after sent reads of people doing so. Some are 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:05.360 in France and some are in Cambodia's National Museum very 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:08.240 far away. Well, I for one, would definitely like to 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:12.399 visit Anchor and Anchor Watt and the whole Shabang. So 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:13.920 would I, and I think it would be a lot 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:16.640 easier to visit than Atlantis, considering we don't know where 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:19.760 it is, or the north to Chico, considering that they're gone. Well, 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:22.000 I think that about wraps it up, unless we think 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:25.000 of any more lost cities to talk of in the future, 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:27.479 So if you'd like to read more, check out our 0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:31.080 article five abandoned Cities, and don't forget to check out 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:33.399 our blog, which you can find on the homepage at 0:21:33.560 --> 0:21:37.800 www dot how stuff works dot com. For more on 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:40.600 this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:43.800 dot com. Let us know what you think, send an 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:46.960 email to podcast at how stuff works dot com, and 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:48.639 be sure to check out the stuff you missed in 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:51.200 History Glass blog on the how stuff works dot com 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:59.800 home page.