In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the forgotten history of Angkor's final centuries. The great Khmer capital, once the largest city in the medieval world, faced a slow unraveling after the reign of Jayavarman VII. We follow the reign of Jayavarman VIII, the arrival of Theravada Buddhism, the sack by the Siamese in 1431, and the eventual abandonment of the city to the jungle. Along the way, we meet the Chinese envoy Zhou Daguan, whose travelogue remains our only eyewitness account of Angkor's decline, and we consider the roles of climate change, water management failure, and shifting trade routes. The episode ends not with a single dramatic event but with a quiet transformation: the forest reclaims the stones, and the memory of Angkor fades — until French explorers stumble upon it in the nineteenth century. This is a story about collapse, but also about resilience and the many ways a civilization can end.
Podden och tillhörande omslagsbild på den här sidan tillhör
Fexingo. Innehållet i podden är skapat av Fexingo och inte av,
eller tillsammans med, Poddtoppen.
