Angkor artwork

From Angkor Wat.

Virtually anything that could be carted out of the Angkor monuments has been taken by invading armies and relic thieves, but there was no way for them to make off with the bas reliefs and some of the largest statues. The No. 1 recurring image is that of the apsara dancers. Thousands of them line the walls and doorways of every temple. You can see the faces, bodies and poses change slightly over the centuries and across the sites, but this Khmer classical dance is still performed today much as it was hundreds of years ago despite the trouncing it took first by the Siamese and later the Khmer Rouge.

From Preah Kahn

From Angkor Wat.

It wasn't all dance and merriment. There are battle scenes galore, nearly all from the Sanskrit epic "Ramayana." The picture below is from Angkor Wat and stars Hanuman, the great monkey-faced Hindu deity leading his forest-dwelling monkey army against the demon king Ravana, who has kidnapped his man Rama's girl Sita.

From Angkor Wat.

The epic length of the epic Ramayana... fade to black.

Terrace of the Elephants at Angkor Thom.

Unexplained dinosaur on a lintel at Ta Prohm.

One of about two dozen figures lining the bridge across the moat in front of Ta Som. It depicts the Hindu creation myth "Churning of the Sea of Milk" in which the bad gods battle the good gods and whip the cosmos into the froth of the Milky Way. 

Elephant dating from 950 A.D. stands guard above the unfinished temple known as the Eastern Mebon.