Beng Mealea’s name means Lotus Pond and is a recent
one, its original name being unknown because as yet no inscription giving
details about who built the temple, when and what they called it has been found.
This temple has been constructed with exceptional care, unlike
Banteay Chamr for example, which shows signs of hast and carelessness.
Where the stonework is in its original position
at Beng Mealea you can walk through mysterious halls and galleries. In other places
tree roots have prized the stones apart causing whole sections to collapse, the
great piles of stones looking like toy
blocks scattered by some giant child. In
other places moss transforms such stones into cubes of green velvet. But it is
the tree; their roots, their
foliage and the play of light and
shade they create on surfaces that make
Beng Mealea so worth a visit.
3 comments:
It looks like some kind of "Post Modernist" installation artwork. Is it constructed from that stone like Borobudur was built from?
Dear Brahmavihara, your right! Some parts do look like a modern art installation. The image that came to my mind was a pile of toy blocks that a giant child has been playing with. Borobudur is made from a porous volcanic stone while Beng Mealea is made from a fairly hard sandstone and some laterite. However, both temples are similar in that each rough stone was cut to fit the already laid ones and thus every one is a different size and shape. As a consequence the walls are not as strong as if all the stones were the same size and laid alternately.
Huge historical tree.
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