CAMBODIA, June 15, 2014 (Sydney Morning Herald): Archaeologists using revolutionary airborne laser technology have discovered a lost mediaeval city that thrived on a mist-shrouded Cambodian mountain 1200 years ago. The stunning discovery of the city, Mahendraparvata, includes temples hidden by jungle for centuries – temples that archaeologists believe have never been looted. Mahendraparvata existed 350 years before Angkor Wat, the Hindu temple that has captivated interest across the world and is visited by more than two million people each year.
An instrument called Lidar strapped to a helicopter which criss-crossed a mountain north of the Angkor Wat complex provided data that matched years of ground research by archaeologists. The research revealed the city that founded the Angkor Empire in 802 ce.
The University of Sydney’s archaeology research center in Cambodia brought the Lidar instrument to Cambodia and played a key role in the discovery that is set to revolutionize archaeology across the world.
Archaeologists and exploration and mapping experts have uncovered more than two dozen previously unrecorded temples and evidence of ancient canals, dykes and roads using satellite navigation co-ordinates gathered from the instrument’s data. In effect the Lidar technology peeled away the jungle canopy using billions of laser pulses, allowing archaeologists to see for the first time structures that were in perfect squares, completing a map of the city which years of painstaking ground research had been unable to achieve.
More at source, including a fabulous 10 minute video describing the project.