Archaeologists Discover Lost City In Cambodian Jungle

First time accepted submitter steve_mark66 writes "Australian archaeologists using remote-sensing technology have uncovered an ancient city in Cambodia that has remained hidden for more than a millennium under dense jungle undergrowth. The discovery of Mahendraparvata, a 1,200-year-old lost city that predates Cambodia's famous Angkor Wat temple complex by 350 years, was part of the Hindu-Buddhist Khmer Empire that ruled much of Southeast Asia from about 800 to 1400 A.D., during a time that coincided with Europe's Middle Ages" The Age has a story of its own, with video.

Comments

Let's hope no one needs...

[Jonah Hex]

... a road built nearby. Maybe I'm just getting old myself, but archaeological sites should be protected, and their destruction really makes me sick at the stupidity of the human race. - HEX

Re:Let's hope no one needs...

[cold fjord]

This new one appears to be untouched by looters, so it may well be in tact and preserved. It also may have some unique content since it appears to have been built during a transition period. It should be interesting to see what comes from it.

I will also be curious to see what is found using the same technique in other parts of the world, such as South America, Africa, and the Middle East.

Re:Let's hope no one needs...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's on top of a mountain, at least. They're not going to build a shopping mall there, but it definitely will become a tourist site.

Cambodia is in a precarious position where one of their biggest sources of revenue is tourism, and they have to balance making tourist dollars with preserving the site -- which could easily get trashed by tourists if not sufficiently protected, and no amount of protection will protect from a gradual wear caused by millions of tourists every year.

Basically, in such a poor country:

no tourism -> site unmaintained; degrades due to natural causes and looters

some tourism -> money generated funds preservation and restoration

lots of tourism -> lots of money, but also a lot more damage to the site not all of which can be repaired

Full disclosure: I went to the Angkor Wat as a tourist last year.

Re:Let's hope no one needs...

[gubon13]

I spent some time out in Angkor Wat and the surrounding areas just a few months ago. Beng Mealea was by far my favorite because it was the least molested and commercialized. Cambodia is in a period of economic transition and they are starting to amass the kind of discretionary wealth necessary to properly protect their proud history. Sadly, most of it has been destroyed and/or looted over the years and there is little they can do about that.

As for your hope, I can pretty much assure you that the area where they re-discovered these ruins is so far away from any place that would need a real road that you needn't worry...

Re:Let's hope no one needs...

[Alomex]

Seriously, in the US, before the government handed things out or got involved in education, people received enough education from the local communities to function in society.

What on Earth are you talking about? Education in America has been handled by the (local) government going all the way back to the settlement of the new colonies.

Also, America is exceptional in that it always had high literacy rates, but in other countries, literacy has increased directly proportionally to the amount of involvement by the government, and higher standard of living is directly co-related to the participation of government with the "big-state" countries of Europe such as Germany and Scandinavian countries consistently outperforming the "small state" countries such as the US (yes, by developed world standards the US is a low taxes, small government country).

Re:Let's hope no one needs...

[Alomex]

but you have missed the entire point.

Nope, I got it loud and clear. Furthermore I gave you evidence to the contrary, i.e. that this "less government implies richer country" is just not supported by the facts. More specifically, there are no examples in the world for the following claim you made.

That is how a country becomes wealthy- when the population provides for themselves and the government only keeps the social economic environment that makes it possible to do so.

The last country that tried that is Ireland, which is currently one of the basket cases of Europe. In the meantime the direct opposite of what you claimed, namely Germany, is thriving.

Seriously dude, you bought this right wing lie of "less government is always better" not unlike the dems of old bought into "more government is always better". Neither one is the case.

Modern democrats now realize that there is such a thing as too much government. Republicans, on the contrary, have yet to learn that there is such a thing as too little government. See Haiti, for an example across the board, or America under-performing Europe in most health indicators while spending more money for an example of an area where America needs more government, not less.

Re:Let's hope no one needs...

[Kiuas]

I'm not sure how higher standard of living is connected with adequate food, shelter, and education for the majority of the population. I'm sure with a base line, the rest will follow but you have missed the entire point.

I'm not the guy you were responding to, but I'm gonna give my 2 cents on the matter. I think you kind of missed his point. In your original post you said:

But expecting government to provide something is really harsh on someone trying to provide for themselves. That is how a country becomes wealthy- when the population provides for themselves and the government only keeps the social economic environment that makes it possible to do so.

Implying that the government being involved in these things (ie. welfare). As someone who lives in a welfare state (Finland) and currently works for the public healthcare sector, let me give my thoughts on why I think you're both wrong and right. I know you didn't originally talk about healthcare, but I'm going to be using that as an example because that's what I'm most familiar with and I think health is no different from the other basic necessities (food, shelter, housing) that you mentioned.

So the facts of the current situation are these: The US is spending the most tax dollars per citizens on healthcare and is ranked 33rd in life expectancy[1][2]. Of the countries that are ahead of US, pretty much all have at least some from of socialized healthcare[3]. Even the countries with insurance-systems like Switzerland and Germany have a model where insurance is used like in the States, but it is mandated and regulated to keep the prices in line and the companies are not allowed to reject sick people. Point being: the US is pretty much the only industrialized country in the world where high amounts of people with no insurance (and therefore pretty much no healthcare) still exist, largerly because of the pricing. This is why it is so expensive: since the law still denies ERs from letting people die even if they're uninsured, the hospitals perform the necessary operations which are priced with (often insane) profit margins because traditionally the insurance companies would pay them, and if/when the uninsured individual cannot pay the bill it is footed by the taxpayers.

Note that the most expensive healthcare system after the US is Norway's single payer model but even that is a whopping 34,6 % cheaper than the US model and the country with the highest life expectancy (Japan) has a socialized model that is 63,1 % cheaper![1]. Japan's average life expectancy is 83 compared to 79 of the States. This means, that the Japanese are using 63 % less money and still getting 5 % better performance from their system. These figures leave no room for interpretation: the US model is clearly more expensive, and at the same time less effective in increasing maintaining/increasing national health (note that I'm not talking about wealthy individuals, I'm very much aware that if you happen to be rich you can get excellent care in the States but that is not my point) than pretty much any other system used by any industrialized country, yet American politicians and the insurance lobby does their best to keep the current system in place.

But expecting government to provide something is really harsh on someone trying to provide for themselves.

You're right, but this is true only in cases where the thing being provided - whether it be healthcare, housing or education - is treated as a privilege instead of as a basic right. The US constitution makes no mention of any of these things as far as I'm aware (although I admit to not having read the thing in its entirety) even though you could easily argue that all of them are necessary for "the pursuit of happiness" that's so often used as the core of the american idealism.

If you treat stuff like education and health as a commodity to be sold for profit, of course it's going to be unfair for the ones paying for it themselves

Now Hiring

[fabioalcor]

They are now hiring more archaeologists for the exploration. Requirements: must be able to run more than 10k meters in Temple Run.

It wasn't a lost city

[93 Escort Wagon]

The archaeologists were using Apple Maps - turns out it was actually Phnom Penh.

Re:Hey...

[bloodhawk]

Alien vs Predator had a plot?

Re:Hey...

[Greyfox]

I think it was a plot to separate you from $8.

Re:More Startling still.........

[sumdumass]

lol.. Hoffa was the leader of the teamsters union that allowed the mob to be part of it. It helped in their so called fight against the big corporations to have a little mob backup. The mob would in turn use the retirement funds to launder money.

Anyways, the senate started investigating the mob connections and the unions and Hoffa disappeared without a trace. No one has found a body, he is presumed to be dead. Several mobsters have claimed they killed him and lead investigators on wild trips looking for the body but it has never been found to date. There is a lot more involved and is actually a somewhat interesting story if you find yourself bored one of these days. Hoffa was one of the original anti 1%ers so to say, but he did most of his work attempting to unionize America in the 70's which more or less lead to all the downsizing in the 80's and outsourcing in the 90's. Most of what the unions demanded back then has been codified into laws now making them more or less a bullying arm for wages and benefits.

Why tell?

[PuddleBoy]

Wouldn't it have been better if they did NOT announce to the world that they found this new city until they *knew* that the gov't could secure it against looters?

I mean, now that this 'unlooted site' has been announced, isn't it just a matter of time before someone loots it?

Re:More Startling still.........

[TrollstonButterbeans]

The kids these days are really resourceful and will lookup Jimmy Hoffa on wikipedia, then watch a Jimmy Hoffa youtube vid and then berate their peers on Facebook for not knowing who Jim Hoffa is and calling their peers noobs. Kids these days ... you gotta love 'em ...

Re:More Startling still.........

[cusco]

Friend of mine grew up in South Chicago. He said that when Hoffa disappeared everyone in his neighborhood stopped buying sausage for a couple of weeks.

Re:More Startling still.........

[Anonymous Coward]

Hoffa was one of the original anti 1%ers so to say, but he did most of his work attempting to unionize America in the 70's which more or less lead to all the downsizing in the 80's and outsourcing in the 90's.

I wish I could log in here because nobody but you will see this comment, but you're spewing misinformation. I was there; I'm 61. You got your history ass-backwards. By the '70s unions were already past their peak and losing power. The downsizing in the '80s and the outsourcing in the 90's had nothing to do with unions. When Reagan jawboned congress to slash the capital gains tax to half of what an ordinary worker paid, there was an orgy of leveraged buyouts by folks like Romney, who would buy up successful companies, fire all the workers and sell off the assets and take home piles of money made on the misery of others. The capital gains tax discourages this behavior.

I was working it Disney from 1980 to 1985 and one of thes vulture capital firms were trying to do it to Disney, buying Disney, selling all its IP and real estate, and leaving all its thousands of employees looking for new jobs. My union then was the Teamsters (worse union I've ever been in, they were in bed with management) and our hours were cut from 40 to 30 for a few months. It really hurt, but not nearly as bad as if the vultures would have succeeded and we'd all been out of work.

The outsourcing was a result of the unions having lost almost all their membership and power; with strong unions, they would not have been able to do all that outsourcing.