Descubren pinturas secretas en los Templos de Angkor

El Mundo, 30 de Mayo de 2014

Mail Online. Orígen: Antiquity Publications.

Millones de personas han contemplado y tocado estas paredes de miles de años de antigüedad. Extasiadas por la belleza inalterable con el paso del tiempo. Hasta que un investigador australiano Noel Hidalgo Tan, descubrió, en una visita al mítico templo de Angkor Wat, restos de pigmentos rojos y negros en las paredes.

Primero, fotografió las paredes con la ayuda de un flash específico, de gran intensidad. Después, según relata la revista ‘Time’, se amplían las imágenes y, por último, se utilizó una técnica de la NASA que permite diferenciar tonalidades muy sutiles de color, de forma que se aprecian los ‘graffitis’ ocultos durante siglos.

El resultado son, según revela la revista ‘Antiquity’, 200 imágenes que muestran edificios, barcos o animales, como los elefantes de la imagen de arriba. Según especifica esta publicación, se trataría de dibujos hechos por los primeros visitantes del templo, después de que este fuera abandonado en el año 1432. En particular, los dibujos procederían de la época en que el templo pasó del hinduismo al budismo, «en el siglo XVI», escribe Tan.

El templo de Angkor Wat, en Camboya, Patrimonio de la Humanidad de la UNESCO, es un símbolo de su país y la estructura religiosa de mayor tamaño construida nunca. Angkor Wat es el templo mejor contemplado de los que integran el asentamiento de Ankor, antigua capital del imperio jemer.

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La noticia más completa en Mail Online (inglés):  The hidden graffiti of Angkor Wat: Nasa technology reveals more than 200 hidden paintings of gods and elephants on temples

• Faded pictures in the temple show gods, musical instruments and boats
• Some are thought to be graffiti left by pilgrims after the Hindu temple was abandoned in 15th century
• Other more skilful works are thought to be part of a renovation effort
• Paintings were revealed using‘decorrelation stretch analysis’ to enhance photos – the same technique used by Nasa to examine Martian rocks

Mapped: The 500-acre temple complex was built in the 12th century and is known for its intricate carvings, some of which measure almost 1,093yards (1km) in length. Here, a map shows where hidden paintings were discovered. Mail Online (Daily Mail).

Music to archaeologists’ ears: A chamber – known as the Bakan – contains a scene showing Khmer musical instruments (pictured) such as different types of xylophones, gongs and wind instruments. Mail Online (Daily Mail).

Seguir leyendo en Mail Online.

Mapa arqueológico de Angkor, Camboya

Uno de los hitos arqueológicos del 2007, según la revista Archaeology, fue la culminación del mapa arqueológico del monumento que ha tardado 10 años en realizar el proyecto Greater Angkor (GAP). Este mapa de la ciudad preindustrial más grande del mundo ha ayudado a dar pistas de las posibles causas del colapso de la ciudad, que posiblemente se debió a la sobrepoblación y a problemas con el medio ambiente y manejo de los recursos.

Archaeology, enero/febrero 2008: Greater Angkor, Cambodia

This computer reconstruction of Angkor Wat is based in part on a new map of the site and the vast urban landscape that surrounded it. (Courtesy Tom Chandler/Monash University). Archaeology.

The capital of a Khmer state that flourished between the ninth and fifteenth centuries, Cambodia’s Angkor is one of the most intensively studied sites in the world. But it continues to inspire more questions than answers, the most fundamental being why the sophisticated Khmer Empire collapsed. In 2007, research into the mysteries of the world’s largest preindustrial city reached a milestone with the completion of a 10-year mapping project, which yielded clues suggesting that the sprawling metropolis may have collapsed under self-induced environmental pressures related to overpopulation and deforestation.

«Angkor was a vast inhabited landscape…larger than anything previously known,» says Damian Evans, deputy director of the Greater Angkor Project (GAP) and lead author of the group’s findings. Their map covers more than 1,100 square miles, detailing thousands of features that were part of an elaborate irrigation system.

The GAP team combined previously existing ground surveys, aerial photos, and radar remote-sensing data provided by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab to create the comprehensive map. It shows an urban center surrounded by dispersed agricultural villages, local temples, and small reservoirs. The team found evidence of silted canals and breached waterworks that suggest the people of Angkor were eventually unable to maintain the vast irrigation system because of erosion and increased flooding. The map also shows the metropolis extended miles beyond the ruins within today’s Angkor Archaeological Park. «Extremely valuable archaeological material stretches far beyond the World Heritage zone,» Evans says.

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La revista PNAS (Proceedings) dedica un artículo muy completo sobre este mapa.

PNAS, 29 de junio de 2007: A comprehensive archaeological map of the world’s largest preindustrial settlement complex at Angkor, Cambodia

A new archaeological map of Greater Angkor. PNAS.

The great medieval settlement of Angkor in Cambodia [9th–16th centuries Common Era (CE)] has for many years been understood as a “hydraulic city,” an urban complex defined, sustained, and ultimately overwhelmed by a complex water management network. Since the 1980s that view has been disputed, but the debate has remained unresolved because of insufficient data on the landscape beyond the great temples: the broader context of the monumental remains was only partially understood and had not been adequately mapped. Since the 1990s, French, Australian, and Cambodian teams have sought to address this empirical deficit through archaeological mapping projects by using traditional methods such as ground survey in conjunction with advanced radar remote-sensing applications in partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Here we present a major outcome of that research: a comprehensive archaeological map of greater Angkor, covering nearly 3,000 km2, prepared by the Greater Angkor Project (GAP). The map reveals a vast, low-density settlement landscape integrated by an elaborate water management network covering >1,000 km2, the most extensive urban complex of the preindustrial world. It is now clear that anthropogenic changes to the landscape were both extensive and substantial enough to have created grave challenges to the long-term viability of the settlement. (seguir leyendo)