Siem Reap / Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Last year, B and I went to a special exhibition about Angkor Wat at the Utah Museum of Natural History.  Thanks to that experience, I knew something of the scale of the temple complex that is generally known by the name of one (of many, many) of the temples in the area.  A goodly number--but not all--of these Hindu temples date from the 12th century, during the Khmer empire reign of Suryavarman II, including the temple known today as Angkor Wat.  But there are dozens of temples spread over a roughly 150 square mile area, and each one is different--in materials, in aesthetics, in time, and in the weathering of time.  The earliest temples date from the 9th century, and others continued to be built until the 15th century.  I understood from that UMNH exhibit that it was a huge sprawl of holy places.  

I did not understand that the impressive macro-scope of the project is perhaps exceeded in astonishments by the micro-scope.  Every freaking square inch of surface area on all these temples is carved, minutely, obsessively, with a mindblowing symmetry given the size of the place.  The carvings tell foundational myths and stories, relate historical eras and battles and the reigns of rulers and their families, and filigree the stones dizzyingly with ornament.  

Such a record in stone of human effort to the end of devotion has always been deeply moving to me.  We are here on this planet for hardly any time at all.  I don't imagine that the now-anonymous carvers of the Angkor-region temples are consoled by their lithic immortality, any more than I am consoled that Jay wrote poems, but there's something about the wish to mark our brief rollercoaster along this mortal coil that connects us all, and I find that powerful.