Angkor Wat was the "mountain temple" at the heart of the city, home of the Hindu gods and center of the earthly kingdom in which the king was regarded as sacred. It was built by Suryavarman II in the 12thcentury as a microcosm of the mythical world in which he identified himself as the god Vishnu who stands guard in the gate tower in the form of a ten and a half foot tall statue carved from a single block of sandstone.
Angkor Wat's spires were mountains, the heights of enlightenment, and its moats signified a great ocean. The Central Temple of Angkor Wat sits in a vast enclosure 800 by 1000 meters in area, surrounded by moats or canals. The tallest or central tower rises about 210 feet (65 meters) above the ground.
Perhaps the greatest treasure of Angkor Wat is bas-relief that surrounds the walls of the outer gallery. It is the world's longest such continuous carving and narrates stories from the Ramayana and Mahabharata, legends of Vishnu and is adorned with hundreds of carvings of devatas and asparas -- celestial women.
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