1002-1296 CE
From 1002 to 1296 CE, the Khmers raised Angkor to heights that still stagger imagination — Suryavarman II building Angkor Wat as his temple-mountain, Jayavarman VII answering Cham invasion with an empire stretching from Burma to Vietnam, his face carved into the towers of the Bayon gazing serenely in all directions. Yet the great hydraulic system that fed a million people slowly silted and failed, and Thai armies found only ghosts among the temples.