充满神秘色彩的柬埔寨吴哥窟最近再添不解之谜。澳大利亚考古人员发现，柬埔寨吴哥窟地下埋着一大片“由直线组成的”螺旋状沙土结构以及8座塔的遗迹，显示这座古老建筑的结构比此前想象的还要复杂。英国《每日邮报》报道，由悉尼大学考古学家罗兰·弗莱彻和达米安·埃文斯率领的考古小组采用航空三维激光雷达扫描技术以及穿地雷达技术发现了这些地下遗迹。
他们在论文中形容这片螺旋状结构是个“巨大的、独特的、引发很多疑问的”结构，它的存在以前从未被认识到，甚至不曾被预料或设想到。考古人员尚无法解释长1500米、宽600米的这片螺旋结构起什么作用，推测它只是在公元12世纪中期到晚期之间被短暂使用，而且可能这个结构从未完工。考古人员认为那8座塔可能被用作圣坛，但是在建吴哥窟主体结构时被拆除。
At Angkor Wat, a massive sand structure encompassing several rectangular spirals was discovered using a laser-scanning technique called LiDAR.
Credit: Image courtesy Khmer Archaeology Lidar Consortium (KALC)
Eight buried towers and the remains of a massive spiral structure created from sand have been discovered at Angkor Wat in Cambodia.
The massive structure — almost a mile long — contains a spiral design, with several rectangular spirals that form a giant structure, archaeologists say. “This structure, which has dimensions of more than 1,500 m × 600 m (about 1 mile by 1,970 feet) is the most striking to date. Its function remains unknown and, as yet, it has no known equivalent in the Angkorian world,” Roland Fletcher, a University of Sydney professor, said in a statement put out by the university.
Today, the spiral structure is hard to make out on the ground, having been obscured by modern features and vegetation.
By examining the mile-long spiral structure and the stone towers, researchers date them back to when was first built in the 12th century A.D. []
King Suryavarman II had to the god Vishnu. The temple has a 213-foot-tall (65 meters) central tower that is surrounded by four smaller towers and a series of enclosure walls. The layout “is considered to correspond with the cosmology of Mount Meru and the surrounding Sea of Milk from which ambrosia was churned by the gods and demons,” wrote a research team in an article published this month in the journal Antiquity.
Antiquity recently published a special section dedicated to the latest archaeological research at Angkor Wat.
Spiral mystery
The spiral structure is difficult to make out from the ground, and archaeologists found it — a laser-scanning technology that allows scientists to detect structures obscured by vegetation or modern development.
When surveyed on the ground the structure turned out to be made of “archaeologically sterile banks of sand,” meaning it contained no artifacts from the past, wrote archaeologists Damian Evans, a researcher with École française d’Extrême-Orient, and Roland Fletcher in an Antiquity article.
“Quite how the spirals functioned is not at all clear,” Evans and Fletcher wrote. One possibility is that it is a garden that provided the temple with produce for rituals and eating, the spiral patterns possibly having a spiritual significance.
Evans and Fletcher found that the spiral structure was not in use for long. A canal that cut through the spiral design was built later in the 12th century.
“The spiral features would only have been functional for a brief period during the mid-to-late twelfth century A.D.,” Evans and Fletcher wrote. They say that it’s possible the spiral structure was never completed.
Buried towers
Another discovery, made using ground-penetrating radar and archaeological excavation, are the remains of what appear to be eight demolished towers constructed out of sandstone and laterite (a type of rock). They were found on the western side of Angkor Wat beside a gateway across the moat.
The dating is not entirely clear but it appears that many of the towers were created during the early-to-mid 12th century when Angkor Wat was being constructed.
Archaeologists found that some of the towers form a series of squares that may have supported one or more structures. They also found that many of the towers were constructed before the gateway wall.
They theorize that the towers could have supported a shrine that was in use while construction of Angkor Wat was underway.
“The configuration of the buried ‘towers’ contains the unique possibility that a shrine was built on the western side of the Angkor Wat platform during the period when the main temple was being constructed,” a research team wrote in an article published in Antiquity.
Once the main temple was constructed and work on the gateway across the western moat began, the shrine could have been torn down, researchers say.
More discoveries
Archaeologists uncovered several other secrets of Angkor Wat. For instance, the LiDAR survey revealed the remains of homes and ponds that would have been used by workers who serviced the temple.
Additionally, researchers found that later in Angkor Wat’s history — after it had been converted to — the site was turned into a military fortification with wooden structures being built to defend the moated site.
“Angkor Wat is the first and only known example of an Angkorian temple being systematically modified for use in a defensive capacity,” Fletcher said. The fortification of it was “one of the last major constructions at Angkor and is perhaps indicative of its end.”