Cambodia's famed Angkor Wat may be one of the most studied temples in the world, but it still manages to surprise.
A joint team of Australian and Cambodian researchers has unveiled a previously hidden series of 500-year-old wall paintings, depicting musicians, elephants and gods.
There are also images similar to graffiti art of people and buildings, and evidence of contact with Europeans.
They are largely invisible to the naked eye, but advances in digital photography and a technique known as decorrelation stretch analysis have brought the paintings back.
The technique is similar to that used to visualise faded rock art.
Australian National University researcher Noel Hidalgo Tan stumbled across faint traces of the pictures while working on an excavation at the Angkor complex in 2010.
"I saw those paintings on the wall, I thought there might be something there, so I took a photograph of them," he told Radio Australia's Asia Pacific program.
"I processed them in the computer later and realised that they were elaborate paintings, and not just traces of pigment."
The paintings are said to date from a time in the 16th century when Angkor Wat was no longer the seat of Khmer power and opulence.
Their creation also seems to coincide with a period when the temple was converted from Hindu to Buddhist use.
Mr Tan says it may even be that the paintings were part of an incomplete renovation project undertaken during the reign of King Ang Chan.
He says they range from simple, single images spread across the entire temple, to more elaborate scenes taking up an entire wall, including one of a Khmer pinpeat or gong ensemble.
"They certainly give us a whole different level of iconographic information," he said.
"Angkor isn't particularly close to the sea, but we have different sorts of water crafts depicted, even European ships, indicating some contact with Europeans at the time."
Mr Tan says he hopes the discovery of such hidden gems at Angkor Wat may lead to similar research work at other temples.
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