Phnom Bakheng Temple

This guide to Phnom Bakheng Temple in Siem Reap sets you inside a puzzle nobody quite solved for a thousand years: how many small towers ring this pyramid, and why the number matters. It follows King Yasovarman the First, who built the temple at the end of the 800s to dedicate a new capital, Yasodharapura, to the god Shiva. It also follows the twentieth-century French scholar Jean Filliozat, who sat at the base of the hill and started counting for himself. Count the towers visible from where you're standing before he tells you what he found.