After 1,200 years in oblivion, the lost city of Mahendraparvata has been brought to the light by French and Australian archaeologists in the thick Cambodian jungle of Phnom Kulen Mountain. The mysterious city mentioned in ancient stone inscriptions is located about 40 km northeast of Angkor Wat temple, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Siem Reap province.

The existence of the city has been known for decades, but much of it lay concealed by forest and earth. It was uncovered by an archaeological expedition led by Jean-Baptiste Chevance of London’s Archaeology and Development Foundation and Damian Evans from the University of Sydney in 2012, who followed the trail of a 1936 expedition by French archaeologist and art historian Philippe Stern. With the help of an airborne laser-scanning technology called LiDAR, researchers were able to explore the soil and subsoil of the impenetrable jungle. They found a centrally planned urban area with a network of major thoroughfares that divide a central zone. It appears to be the first large-scale “grid city” built in the Khmer world, with an area initially estimated at about 40-50 km². Mahendraparvata is well aligned and comprises a system of smaller-scale land parceling that subdivides city blocks within the grid. The ruins show remnants of small shrines, mounds, and ponds; a large-scale water-management system with dams and an unfinished reservoir; a distinctive spatial arrangement of a royal palace and pyramid/temple; and other infrastructure elements that are unique to all other known Khmer Empire capitals, such as mysterious ten-foot-high mounds arranged in geometric patterns whose meaning and function remain elusive.

Meaning “Mountain of the Great Indra,” the name Mahendraparvata refers to the sacred hilltop site known today as Phnom Kulen. A devilishly difficult plateau to access, it served as one of the last bastions of the Khmer Rouge, who occupied the area from the early 1970s until the late 1990s and left landmines dotted all over. Archaeological evidence reveals that the site dates back to the late eighth to early ninth century, which is centuries before archeologists thought such organized cities emerged in the Angkor area. Mahendraparvata was one of the three capitals (along with Amarendrapura and Hariharalaya) of Jayavarman II, the first king of the Khmer Empire who ruled from 802 to at least 830, marking the beginning of the Angkor period. Predating Angkor Wat by about 350 years, the once-mighty metropolis is immediately recognizable as Angkorian. It is also identifiably “urban” with a development of urban form that is totally unique in the Khmer world. Chevance speculates that Phnom Kulen may have been a site of worship and pilgrimage throughout the Angkor period, while local paleobotanical records suggest extensive and intensive human land use from the eighth to 12th centuries AD.

Similar to the ancient Khmer capital Koh Ker, evidence reveals a unique and intricate network of earthen dikes, which seem to be designed for a purpose other than irrigated rice agriculture. This ambitious, unfinished project’s unseen scale and layout appears to be an enormous, remarkably early experiment in formal urban planning.

Considered part of the medieval urban fabric of Angkor, the area offers unparalleled insights into understanding the historical trajectory of Angkor and the Khmer Empire, one of the most advanced civilizations in Southeast Asia. The ruins are a prototype for water management with vast artificial lakes and for high-density urban centers that would later become typical of the Khmer Empire and a defining feature of the low-lying Angkor floodplains


© Digital art by Ming Fan

 

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In the collective imagination, Vietnam natural heritage is associated with primary forests, misty limestone ranges, meandering rivers, deltaic zones, and terraced rice fields. Another aspect less known is its vast oceanic sand dune fields. Dune fields can be found on all five continents: Sahara and Namib deserts of Africa, Great Sand Dune and Death Valley in North America, Atacama desert of South America, Arabia’s Rub Al Khali and Nefud deserts, the Dune du Pilat in Europe, Lut, Registan, Dehistan, Karakum, Taklimaklan and Gobi deserts in Central Asia, Simpson desert in Australia and, of course, the iconic oceanic dunes of South Vietnam.

In this little exposé, Secret Indochina takes a closer look at the Binh Thuan province great dune. The French of the colonial era compared the region to the Algerian or Cyrenaica coastline. These analogies are relevant: anthropological particularities linked to a partly Islamized Champa and various local species (Ravan’s moustaches, lion’s ears, pandanus trees, dragon bones and giant butterfly lizards) made the dunes seem even more exotic.

The great dune extends between Phan Ri and Phan Thiet in northeastern Binh Thuan province. A semi-desert entity with unique dimensions and characteristics in southeast Asia. The dune field stretches majestically on a northeast-southwest axis over a distance of about 50 km long and 20 km wide. It borders the Luy River, the RN1 and Phan Ri to the north and northwest, the East Sea (formerly Panduranga Sea, Champa Sea or South China Sea) and Mui Né seaside resort to the southwest, and Phan Thiet Bay to the north. The northern part is formed by white dunes (Trinh Nu), which at their center reach a height of several hundred meters. The epicenter of the dune extends in terraces of red ruby sands (Suoi Tien) that alternate with white or yellow dunes (Hon Rom) scattered along the coastline or inland. The southeast is steep, barred in places by high white dunes, the sands sliding on Ba Nai rocky mound (site of the cham tower of Po Shanu), while in the southwest it slopes smoothly towards the Phan Thiet plain.

Seen from a satellite, the dune has a half-moon shape comparable to the southern foothills of the Annamite Cordillera that dominates it: a set of superb rocky massifs arranged along a semi-circular arc to capture the winds. For thousands of years, oceanic winds and anticyclonic masses combined with currents running in corridors towards the area transports masses of sand, thus forming the dunes. Some areas have escaped silting, especially rocky capes such as Mui Yen. The alteration sequences are characterized by successions of sand colors: white, yellowish white, yellow, and yellowish red. The dunes are rich in quartz and enriched with heavy minerals such as ilmenite, zircon, anatase, rutile, pyroxene and monazite. They are longitudinal, reversible or pyramidal (dual-wind directions) and moving, occasionally merging and reforming under the effect of mechanical factors and bimodal winds blowing alternately.

The climate of the dune is semi-arid type C. From June to December, it experiences the southwest monsoon, which generates precipitation, storms, typhoons and floods creating periodic wadis. The streams feed seasonal forest pools, swampy zones, Bau Sen and Bau Trang lakes (or Bau Ba and Bau Ong, in the center-north of the dune), with the water table located about 40 meters under the dunes. The end of the rainy and typhoon season in October-November brings springtime, when the bloom of bushes and grasses fill the air with subtle scents and the forests and bushes turn in a lush green. Just a few weeks after the last rains, the area becomes arid again and burns under the fires and winds of the dry season, when only cactus flourish.

On the beaches edges and coastal strips where the sands are not completely fixed, the vegetation consists of bushes or small steppes where low or creeping grasses grow in groves, including species endemic to the Pacific: varieties of Asian crab grass (Digitaria barbata, or cheekbone grass), devil’s thorns (Tribulus terrestris, goat’s head, devil’s eyelashes or bindii), varieties of life plants (Kalanchoe pinnata, the leaf of life, also called siempre vivo by the Spanish) and other plants characteristic of coastal areas.

The heights that dominate the coasts are dotted with dodonaeas (Dodonaea viscosa or hopbush) and crown-flowers (Calotropis gigantea), known in Sanskrit as the Arka, with lavender blooms loved by Shiva that decorated the perimeters of Hindu temples and whose white sap was used to poison arrows. Léonotis (Leonotis nepetifolia, also known as soldier’s pompom, lion’s ear or tail, wild dagga, or Christmas candlestick), sea ferns (Lygodium salicifolium) and varieties of white magnolias also flourish in the heights. Palm groves are located in the southern part of the dune, especially in Thien Trung.

Above the coastline on inhabited dunes or in depressions where the water table is close, appears arid meadows or small groves with prickly pear bushes (Opuntia ficus-indica, the opuntia or Indian fig), crown of thorns (Euphorbia milii or Paliurus spina-christi, crown of Christ or thorn of Christ), Ravan’s moustaches (Littoral spinegrass, herbaceous with bushy tuft), pandanus (Pandanus schmidtinandi, or baquois), dragon-trees (Dracaena cambodiana), varieties of Rubiaceae with delicate white flowers, and a variety of love vine (Cassytha filiformis).

Further inland, in the dune northwestern sector, the sands create a barrier that provides shelter for an ancient maritime forest (Doc Ham protected zone). The maritime forest is nearly impenetrable except for a few uncertain paths. An inhospitable area with low, collapsed undergrowth, filled with thorns and lianas with sharp claws. There are Chinese banyan (Ficus microcarpa or Indian laurel, a locally bushy tree), many varieties of thorny lianas, species of false rattan (Flagellaria indica) and impassable curtains of bamboo.

Until the 1950s, tigers, panthers, elephants, wild buffalos, and rhinoceros roams the dune woods, turtles prospered on the coast, while whales, dolphins, and shark-whales cruised the open sea and the Siamese crocodile frequented the marshes and adjacent rivers. Currently, wild boars, monkeys, deer, and wild cats can still be spotted. Local peculiarities favor reptiles, which are divided into a dozen species including bloodsucking lizards (Calotes versicolor, the changing lizard), giant butterfly lizards (Leiolepis guttata), kukri snakes (Oligodon macrurus) and king cobras (Ophiophagus hannah). Fish ripple in the central lakes pure waters, including anabas, catfish, and carps. Numerous bird species nest in the woods, in the meadows, or on the coastline rocky spurs. The most notable are the grey heron (Ardea cinerea), the sea eagle (Haliaeetus leucogaster), the Indian lapwing (Vanellus indicus, characterized by its alert chirping, sometimes called did-he-do-it bird or pity-to-do-it-bird), the barn owl (Tyto alba) and the red-backed woodpecker (Dinopium javanense).

The area was once called ghul pron (great dune) by the Panduranga kingdom Chams. From their ancient capitals of Bal Hanön (the citadel of Song Luy) and Parik (Phan Ri) in the northwestern and northern foothills of the dune, they organized annual processions to Bau Ba and Bau Ong lakes (the woman’s and man’s lakes), where a temple once stood.

The enchanting great dune sands still hold untouched areas suitable for exploration and breezy journeys. As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote in The Little Prince: “I have always loved the desert. We sit on a sand dune. We see nothing. We hear nothing. And yet something shines in silence”


© Photo credit: William Patino