For those who grew up watching Indiana Jones films, nothing beats the mysteries surrounding the ancient lost city. An international team of archaeologists has begun to study a mysterious ancient staircase climbing to the top in the Phnom Kulen mountain range, which is located in the north of Cambodia.
The mountain, which houses several shrines and Buddha statues, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is considered sacred in Buddhist tradition.
The 550-meter staircase is carved directly into the red colored rock. It is surprising that next to the springs on the stairs are organized sites that, as archaeologists assume, served as a place for rest.
Scientists have yet to determine the exact date of the construction of the staircase, about which many legends and stories have been created over the centuries. However, none of them can explain the mystery - who and for what purpose created this staircase.
One thing is for sure, it took a tremendous amount of effort to build the staircase. According to archaeologist Jean-Baptiste Chevanchi, the idea of its creation belonged to some unknown ancient emperor.
“It takes a lot of manpower to build a ladder that climbs to the very top. It could have been built by more than just some local rich guy. The problem is that we don't know when it was taken. We did not find any inscriptions or carvings,”the archaeologist said.
According to the main hypothesis, the stairs led to the ancient fortress city of Mahendraparvata, which belonged to the Khmer Empire, which existed on the territory of modern Cambodia since the ninth century. With the help of aerial radar, it was recently revealed that the area of the lost city was much larger than previously thought.
Archaeologists hope the recent discoveries will help stop logging that is underway in the area surrounding the stairs. And locals dream that the staircase will soon become a lucrative tourist attraction.
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Voronina Svetlana