Archaeologists Uses Lidar Laser Technology To Uncover Ancient Cities Beneath Cambodian Jungle

A new archaeological research has found a vast network of ancient cities beneath the Cambodian jungle near Angkor Wat city using laser technology.

Australian archaeologist Dr Damian Evans and his team used cutting-edge airborne laser scanning technology known as Lidar to uncover multiple archaeological cities, ranging from 900 to 1,400 years old, including the city Mahendraparvata that may be larger than Cambodia's current capital city Phnom Penh. While, scans made in 2012 confirmed the existence of Mahendraparvata, it was recently discovered to be much more massive than believed.

The Lidar technique uses a helicopter to filter out surface vegetation and give an accurate map of the ground. An airborne laser scanner mounted on the underside of a helicopter sends 16 laser pulses which measure each square metre of ground and reveals hidden details in the shape of the terrain. The height of the ground is calculated on the basis of the time taken by the beam to return to the sensor. The helicopter flies on a pre-arranged flight path that too at a constant speed and altitude.

"We have entire cities discovered beneath the forest that no one knew were there," archaeologist Damian Evans, CALI's principal investigator and technical coordinator, told the Guardian.

"But now we can see them with incredible precision and detail, in some places for the very first time, but in most places where we already had a vague idea that cities must be there."

Revealed: vast medieval cities hidden beneath the Cambodian jungle https://t.co/JbsvIirSXy

— The Guardian (@guardian) June 11, 2016

Evans claimed that there are "fascinating new insights" that need to be learned about the rise and fall of the Khmer empire during the 15th century. It is believed that the findings will also offer historians with new information on the collapse of Angkor.

The archaeologist added that the airborne laser scanners had also identified large numbers of mysterious geometric patterns formed from earthen embankments, which could have been gardens.

The research findings by Evans and his colleagues, known as the Cambodian Archaeological Lidar Initiative (CALI), is a joint project of the French Institute of Asian Studies and the Cambodian government.

A paper outlining the new research has been published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.