Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1922-07-07

many others scattered about this wide
plain, including Angkor Tom, only q
mile away; but these are all ruins,
indeed, while'the wat" might still be
called building. sa Fti- 4.' @
Standing, In front of the temple
grounds (the word wat means IA tenn
ple), you SEGA moat some 30 rods
wides susreuRding, theapserassss Alike a
medieval castle, and crossed by stone
causeway leading to the main entrance.
This entrancefis Itself a massive tower,
tianked by two others. only, a little
smaller, set in the Enclosing wall. The
whole. inclosnreJ Is 500 by. 1000, me-
tiers, and its. area is, therefore 176
acres. Passing through the entrance,
you see the elevated stone .causeway,
flanked by several temples, leading up
to the wat in the distance,
AT. a distance you get the effect of
lateral magnitude only, for the entire
structure or group Of. structures Is, sit
ting. fiat on a level plain, unaspiring
and almost upipspiring. 1T Is, not a
little surprising to look at the central
tower. apd hear that it. is actually 60
meters CHS feet) from its summit to
the level of the-pIsiHs---
1t jssnpt still ione enters, the. aallaries
and begins to measure distances rel
atively therefrom that the grandeur
and impressiveness, of the conception
begin to, make, themselves. felt, Those
same rounded towers now spring aloft,
and the inner, temple Is raised above
a surrounding gallery which is In turn
terraced above an outer and surround
ing gallery. till the roof Of che latter
is on a level With the base Of the for
mer, These two accomplishing CALLER
les and the cruciform temple building
proper within them are the main de-
tails in the ground plan of the wat.
The, material used throughout in the
CONSTRUCTION is "a grayish sandstone
which, the French call "gres,", 1t much
resembles marble. in closeness and
fineness Of grain, and it stands wealth
ering admirably, Where portions OF
the decorative detail had been affec-
tionately caressed and stroked by adj
miring hands, the stone is as smooth
as polished marble The effect of the
color is certainly as somber as could
be conceived, and TO see it in ruins is
painfully: ugeestiyeaof tile grasnsss of
death.
A'n'.' covered with Carvings. '~"1
And all. Of these tons upon tons of
stone We're Brought from Prom Coulen,
nearly 10. miles away, Hey, oysrllard2
impossible. If that submerged forest
could tell its own history we should
probably hear of time, when both
Pnom Coulen and Angkor were stu
ated upon the margin of Tonic Sap
and the stone barges went to and fro
between them. But that triumphant
forest, having driven back the sea, has
made a imalarlal marsh near the ruins
which, is simply. one of its weapons
offensive.
" If the mass of the structure is i'm
pressive, the amount of decorative
work. done suponsit. ito speak only
quantitatiyely. is still more so, Inside
and outside from top to bottom, It Is
mass of carving In stone. few
blank spaces are to be found about the
building, and these are generally in
the main temple, reserved for the work
of the greater artists who never, came.
Both the encircling galleries consist Of
row of square columns on the outer
side, an arch en- corbeille above, and
am inner wall with an entafdatures for
the whole colonnade. And everything
is decorated-th the four fiat faces Of the
columns, the walls, the entablature,
and the wooden ceiling which formerly
rested upon it, concealing the arch
which is unornaf1ented-
who built these ruins, and, when did
they build theml
The Khmers built them, but who
they, were, where ithey came from,
when ana why they built and finally,
why they disappeared. nobody is yet
able to- answer with certainty. Tratii-
ton In the person of an ailege'f Chi
nese historian says that a powerful
ruler once emigrated from INDIA with
all hts Followers to escape aastil more
powerful. ruler. that he subjhgated
the people he found here and put them
to work erecting these enormous edi-
fices OF stone. AT present the safest
guess as to the date of building is as
follows.l suss ist' .st q. 49, 81
For Angkor Tom, the Ninth century
A. D.. spr dqrigs the i. Esigg, q, Alfred
the Great in England. For AngkorI
Wat. the Twelfth century. or 1907
years after the Norman conquest