Baphuon Temple, located 200 meters north-west of Bayon, is a five-step sandstone pyramid with a base of 128 x 102 m. From the north, the temple is almost adjoined by a water moat of another similar structure - the royal palace Phimeanakas.
The triple gopura, through which the entrance to Baphuon was made, is located along a line that continues the axis of Bayon from south to north. Today, this entrance gopura was almost completely destroyed, only the foundations of the walls and the ruins of the porticos remained. In addition, once on three sides the temple was surrounded by a profiled fence 425 x 125 m.
A road about 170 m long leads to the temple, raised almost 1 m above ground level, and this is somewhat reminiscent of Angkor Wat. But, unlike Angkor Wat, the sandstone road of Baphuon is a kind of bridge, supported by low round columns. Which in three rows support the sandstone slabs of the bridge. At a distance of about two-thirds of the way, the road is interrupted by a cross-shaped pavilion-platform, where 2 of its terraces stretch to the south and north. The southern terrace leads to a 28 x 37 m pool lined with sandstone blocks.
On the 1st level of Bapuona, the ruins of 4 "libraries" are preserved, the 2nd level is formed by a platform and is crowned by a narrow sandstone gallery, and the 3rd level is divided into 2 platforms and ends with a gallery. Between the 2nd and 3rd levels, there are ruins of stairs leading to the corner towers.
Under the influence of various factors, the temple was severely destroyed, where by the end of the 16th century, Baphuon turned into a heap of stones, which Buddhist monks used without any regret to glorify their idol. And, despite the fact that for a long time Baphuon was repeatedly reconstructed, it was not possible to stop its destruction. The result of all the restoration work was that the temple turned from an ancient landmark into an ordinary remake, where its final appearance is shown on the image of the model.
Promotional video:
And then let's compare what happened with what happened. And here, under the picture given in Wikipedia, there is a caption: "Reconstruction of the Baphuon by Lucien Fournereau in 1889", according to which you can not only find Lucien Fournereau and Jacques Porcher, authors of the work "Les ruines d'Angkor", but also present the true the appearance of the Baphuon temple.
And it turns out that on each tier of the pyramid, at their corners and sides, there were many prang towers. The upper platform of the ziggurat was crowned by the largest - the central prang. And one can imagine: if the total height of Baphuon was once approximately 50 m, then its central tower was directed upwards for all 30 m.
Another loss was the fact that the stone galleries that were located along the perimeter of each tier almost completely disappeared.
Let's sum up some results:
- the temple is a multistage truncated pyramid, strictly oriented to the cardinal points;
- many prang towers were installed on its tiered platforms, and in the center of the pyramid, at the very top, was the largest prang tower;
- the entrance to the temple is on the east side;
- in the same place, on the entrance road, there is a cross platform adjacent to the mirror of the water basin;
- The Baphun temple itself is part of the Angkor Thom temple complex.