Preah Khan Temple
Sprawling jungle monastery of stone corridors and carved doorways, built as a walled Buddhist university and royal shrine.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Preah Khan Temple in Siem Reap follows the story of the Preah Khan Reach, a jeweled ceremonial sword passed from Khmer king to king since the 800s and possibly once kept inside this temple's small central chamber. A thirteenth-century account by the Chinese envoy Zhou Daguan describes a golden sword carried before the ruler, and later kings could not be crowned without it. It traces how King Norodom waited nearly four years for its return from Bangkok after his 1860 coronation, and what became of the sword during Cambodia's 1970 coup. Stoop as you enter the innermost sanctuary, where centuries of oil-lamp soot still blacken the ceiling.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Ta Prohm Temple
Twelfth-century Buddhist monastery left half swallowed by silk-cotton and strangler fig roots.
Banteay Thom Temple
Ruined jungle sanctuary of a Buddhist king, its carved pediments quietly defaced by a later Hindu revival.
Banteay Prei Temple
Small ring-shaped Bayon-style shrine of dry moat, carved apsaras, and an unrecorded purpose.
Preah Ponlea Sdach Komlong (Terrace Of The Leper King)
Carved sandstone royal platform hiding a pristine inner wall sealed for seven centuries.
Ta Nei Temple
Jungle-shrouded Bayon-style ruin reachable only on foot, its carved stones recently restored rather than sold off.
Bayon Temple
Two hundred sixteen serene stone faces crown fifty-four towers of a twelfth-century Buddhist state temple.