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| On the top of Mountain |
Phnom Bakheng is a Hindu temple in the form of a temple mountain. Dedicated to Shiva, it was built at the end of the 9th century, during the reign of King Yasovarman (889-910). Located atop a hill, it is nowadays a popular tourist spot for sunset views of the much bigger temple Angkor Wat,
which lies amid the jungle about 1.5 km to the southeast. The large
number of visitors makes Phnom Bakheng one of the most threatened
monuments of Angkor.
Constructed more than two centuries before Angkor Wat, Phnom Bakheng
was in its day the principal temple of the Angkor region, historians
believe. It was the architectural centerpiece of a new capital,
Yasodharapura, that Yasovarman built when he moved the court from the
capital Hariharalaya in the Roluos area located to the southeast.
