| Khmer Prasat Preah Vihear temple sits atop the Dangrek escarpment. Colonial France and French geographers had found the physical features provided by the Dangrek Range a convenient natural boundary marker in territorial settlement between "French Indochina" and Siam, and although both the temple and the Range have come to denote the frontier dividing two nations in modern time, their historical significance might have rested with the centrality of the geography as mid-point and centre or heart of the vast Khmer Empire. The Temple's long north-south axis construction perching atop the narrow cliff - unlike most Khmer temples built in a rectangular mode and facing east - affording a hemispheric overview of the great plains/plateaus immediately to either side of the Range also alludes to, or perhaps, underscores the structure's strategic significance as the Empire's guarding post and watch tower - School of Vice [credit: google] |
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