Description : Mahendraparvata (Khmer: មហេន្ទ្របវ៌ត) is an ancient city of the Khmer Empire era in Cambodia. The existence of the city has been known for decades, but much of it lay concealed by forest and earth. The city was uncovered by an archaeological expedition led by Jean-Baptiste Chevance and Damian Evans in 2012 with the aid of airborne laser scanning technology called LIDAR. The expedition team have dated Mahendraparvata's origins to 802 AD. Thus the city predates Angkor Wat by about 350 years. The city's origins date to the reign of Jayavarman II, considered the founder of the Khmer Empire. His reign was consecrated on the sacred mountain of Mahendraparvata, known as Phnom Kulen in contemporary Cambodian.:99–101 The city he founded at Mahendraparvata was one of three capitals, or courts, of Jayavarman II's reign, the others being Amarendrapura and Hariharalaya. The 1936 expedition of French archaeologist and art historian Philippe Stern had also explored the Phnom Kulen highlands. He discovered some previously unknown temples and Vishnu statues and described the area as the first true temple mountain. But the area, while being the source of rivers flowing south to the Tonle Sap, was remote. Later in his reign, Jayavarman II moved to Hariharalaya where he died in 835 AD.
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