Khmers III

1431-1594 CE

From 1431 to 1594 CE, the Khmers endured their long diminishment — Thai armies sacking Angkor, the court fleeing to Phnom Penh and Lovek, their empire shrinking to a rump state squeezed between Siamese and Vietnamese expansion. The temples of their ancestors vanished into jungle; the chronicles record king after king struggling merely to survive. When Siam finally captured Lovek, they carried away scholars and dancers, leaving Cambodia emptied of its heritage.