Ta Prohm Temple

This guide to Ta Prohm Temple in Siem Reap starts with King Jayavarman the Seventh's grief for his mother, whose face he had carved into the temple's central goddess in 1186. It follows an 1882 inscription listing the small army of priests, monks and dancers once assigned to keep the monastery running, and the collapse that emptied it centuries later. It also traces the debate among early French conservators over whether to clear the jungle that had grown through the stone. Look up at the silk-cotton roots gripping the doorways as you listen.