Megalithic Marvels - Forbidden Secrets of Angkor Wat / Cassie Martin

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

Surrounded on every side by peaceful waters, Ankor Wat rises from the jungle as the crown jewel of the ancient Khmer capital city of Angkor. Sitting on 402 acres of land, it is considered the largest religious structure in the world by Guinness World Records. Angkor Wat is a unique combination of the temple mountain and the later plan of concentric galleries. The construction of Angkor Wat suggests that there was a celestial significance with certain features of the temple. This is observed in the temple's east–west orientation, and lines of sight from terraces within the temple that show specific towers to be at the precise location of the solstice at sunrise. The temple's main tower aligns with the morning sun of the spring equinox. The temple is a representation of Mount Meru, the home of the gods according to Hindu mythology: the central quincunx of towers symbolise the five peaks of the mountain, and the walls and moat symbolize the surrounding mountain ranges and ocean. The mainstream history narrative tells us that Ankor Wat was originally constructed circa 1150 AD by the Khmer king Suryavarman II who ruled 1113-1150 AD) in the early 12th century. But is there more to Ankor Wat than we've been led to believe? In this episode I sit down with researcher and explorer Cassie Martin who just returned from an expedition in Cambodia exploring Ankor Wat and the many temples of Cambodia. Using Power Point presentation, Cassie will guide us through many examples of out-of-place-artifacts, LIDAR scan and architectural styles that seem to point to an older history at Ankor Wat and the surrounding temples... Did Khmer king Suryavarman II reclaim and build upon an ruins from an earlier epoch?JOIN US ON AN UPCOMING TOUR

Stargate Voyager. Well, I am super excited to be joined by a fellow researcher and explorer. This is somebody I met this last summer when we were on our Mysteries of England tour with Hugh Newman and a bunch of amazing people. And I got to know Cassie Martin a bit as we explored the ancient megaliths and mysteries of England and Stonehenge. And on tours like this, you just have so many great conversations with people. And as Cassie and I talked, I was like, man, this girl knows her stuff. She's a researcher and her husband Blake, awesome guy.

And your sibling, Andy and Stacey, they were amazing too. So you guys were just like this amazing duo couples that travel around the world. And then I found out you're quite the researchers. So I'm so pumped that we are talking today. But how are you doing, Cassie? I'm doing great, Derek. Yeah, I've been following your show for a while. I'm a huge fan, so I'm really, really excited to be here today.

I'm excited because some people might know I've been promoting our Cambodia tour coming up this November, and I'll plug that at the end of this interview. But this is perfect timing because you just got back from there, and I saw you posting all of your incredible photos. And so I'm like, we have got to do a show on The Secrets of Cambodia. And I told you you sent me some ideas and I'm blown away by this slide show you've prepared. So I'll let you take it. And then I'll just kind of jump in when I have a question and I'm excited.

Yeah, thanks, Derek. Yeah, it was a really wonderful trip. And, you know, as you and I were talking earlier, I feel like Cambodia is a difficult place to research before you go. You know, you get these maps of the sites and there's literally thousands of them around the country. And so when you land on the ground and you actually stand in front of some of these monuments, you start to really compare these sites to things you've seen in other places of the world. And I thought that's what I would share with you and your listeners today. And hopefully the folks that go on your trip this November have a little more context

and can look for some of the more interesting things on the sites. Oh, yeah. This is going to be so great because as we're learning more and more as we peel back the layer of, you know, what the mainstream narrative says regarding history, not just in Egypt, not just in Peru, but even in faraway places like Cambodia at Anchor Wat, there seems to be a hidden history. And so I'm really excited that we're going to get into that, not just talk about it, but if you're watching on YouTube or Spotify, you're going to see actual photograph. So this is going to be awesome. Yeah, speaking of ancient cultures, Derek, I mean, the news that came out

this week with the pyramids were just, it was insane. If true, this is the biggest news in our lifetimes, right? Yep. And it just shows what this kind of technology can do. I mean, later in this discussion, I'm going to talk about the LIDAR scans that they did all over Cambodia. And some of the things that they uncovered just with those scans, and that's a fairly simple technology compared to what they were using in Egypt, the things they discovered

were incredible. So I think, you know, as we move forward, as technology advances, it's going to be really fun to see, you know, does this ancient history become more of a reality? Let's get into it. Give us the beginning of this amazing presentation. I looked at it in advance and, man, you've done your homework. Well, I was in corporate finance for many years, so I'm very good at PowerPoint. All right. So let's talk Cambodia.

So I think the best place to start when you're showing everyone where in the world these things. are is a map. So here's a map of Cambodia. You'll see CM Reap in the broader anchor area highlighted here in yellow. This is where the majority of the temples are located and really all of the temples that we're going to talk about today. If you zoom in a little, you'll see a map of the anchor area with CM Reap there right at the bottom. An anchor watt is on the south side of the complex in the middle. And the broader anchor Tom temple complex is to the north of that. And there are literally hundreds of temples around this area. You could spend weeks or months and still not see everything. It's quite impressive. And as you look at these overhead maps of the area,

at least one thing that I noticed right away is the sheer amount of water. So you have moats around almost all of the sites that you visit. You have these big canals that connect these structures. And then you have these, which are called barres. And there's a western barret and an eastern barret. And I wanted to point these out just so you can get an idea of how massive this place is. And these barres are man-made, and they're each about eight kilometers long and two kilometers wide. And there's still the biggest hand-cut reservoirs on earth. Now archaeologists basically say, you know, they probably use these for agricultural purposes, maybe some spiritual purposes. I think with the scale of the work that they did here, it served a very different purpose

than water and crops. And you can see this. Those are absolutely massive. Massive. And, you know, just for context, that little dot you see in the middle of that Barre picture is a full temple that you can take a boat out to. and visit. And there's a temple in that one, and then there's a temple also in the eastern baray. So if we talk about the dating of the sites in Cambodia, I think it's pretty important

to start here, to give some context. I mean, you and I have been talking about these ancient sites. You know, I personally believe that almost all of these sites around the world are older than we're told. You know, the Great Pyramid of Giza is officially recognized is about 2,600. B.C. Stonehenge around 2,500. But according to the official timeline of Cambodia, almost all of the temples, including Anchor Wat, are being attributed to the Khmer period, which is about 800 CE to 1400 CE, or, you know, six to 1,200 years ago. So compared to the other sites of Earth, even in the official story, these are really considered to be quite young. I believe that there's a lot of evidence to indicate that these temples are substantially older than that.

And, you know, as I traveled around, I noticed that there were some sites that, you know, even within the temple complex, some sites that really looked and felt older than others. You know, you compare them to each other. And then if you also just compare some of these sites to other ancient sites in the world, so many commonalities that you start to pick up. So the first kind of group of temples that I think are really important to point out are what even the Cambodian archaeologists believe are the oldest structures in Cambodia. I tend to agree with them. I disagree on the date that they're proposing, but I agree that they're the oldest. So they're the pyramids of Cambodia. And you can see all three of these, except for the Co-Care Pyramid, which is the bottom left photo, you can see all three of these within the Anchor Complex.

The Co-Care Pyramid is up in the northern part of the country. You can see that they're all step pyramids. They all have three, five, or seven tiers. And you really can't help but notice how similar they are to other people. pyramids around the world. Look at that. If you, you know, if you compare the, the backstage chom-cromb pyramid to, to call pyramid, I mean, they look like siblings, almost twins.

The striking resemblance to the pyramid of Josar in Egypt. You know, was this a universal, ancient culture that spread these ideas? and that's why you see these similar sites all over the world like this. So I thought we could go into a couple of these older sites, and I can just share some interesting things that I saw when I was on the ground there. We can start with the Baxi Chomp Crom Pyram Pyram Pyram pyramid, which is it's right in the main temple complex. It's just north of Anchorwa on the west side of the road.

So it's super easy to get to from Angkor. the pyramids constructed out of laterite, which are the big blocks you see there on the bottom levels of the pyramid. And then there's that sandstone temple up on top. Laterite is a rock that's native to Cambodia. It was quarried about 50 miles away in the Gulen Mountains. And I thought this was interesting. The material is pretty unique because it's soft when it's extracted, but then it hardens once it's exposed to air. So it's really the perfect material to use for building.

It's also quite porous, so water doesn't affect it the way that it affects some of the other materials. I think, you know, this is a good, I want to spend a minute basically talking about the dating of these sites. I know we talked about the general age range, but there is a Sanskrit inscription carved on the doorway at the top. And you can see it reads in the Saka year 870, which is 948 CE, on this auspicious day, the glorious king dedicated, remember that word, this temple to the Supreme Lord Shiva in honor of his ancestor, who was another king that ruled from 910 to 923. So they effectively made this assumption that this previous king built the pyramid. and thus they say that the construction date is 910 CE. That's literally it. As far as I could tell from my research, they didn't do excavations.

They didn't do anything to try to date the site other than using this inscription they found at the top. Right. And so because they found this inscription, they're saying this is when it was made. When like in Egypt, you know, we have Ramsey's second tagging all these different sites. Yep. And so the archaeologist just assumed well since Ramsey's tagged it and he lived this time, they must be this old. But it's likely they found these ancient older structures, right, and claimed them as their own. Yeah.

And, you know, these people in their defense that wrote this inscription, they didn't even really claim it as their own. They dedicated it in honor of another king. So they didn't actually say explicitly, I built this. I know a lot of people around the world in inscriptions do claim that, but in this particular inscription, they don't. Wow. So I think, and this is a theme you see just across almost all of the sites in Cambodia, these really, in my opinion, new inscriptions carved, you know, that the archaeologist excavated out of the corners of, you know, these various sites. and that becomes how they attributed the dates to all of these sites. The next site is the Phnombe King Temple,

which sits just next to the one that we just talked about. This massive pyramid is built on top of a big hill just up the road from Anchor Wat. In the top right photo you see if you're watching the presentation, you can see the original path that they use to climb to the top of this hill, and it's actually still adorned with these guardians. and lions. This is now closed off. So when you do walk to the top, you have to take this meandering path all the way around the side of the mountain. This pyramid is five tiers. And interestingly, it originally had 108 towers. So 108, that number is a deeply symbolic number that

represents cosmic fullness, which I thought, you know, was really interesting that imagine the time it takes to build 108 towers on your pyramid. It's built out of sandstone over a ladderite core, so just like Anchor Wat. And it's a really popular site for watching sunset over the valley and taking pictures of Anchor. So you can see Anchor Wat from the top of the pyramid. When we were there, boy, it was really hazy, you know, very dry. And so you could barely make out the outline of Anchor, but in this picture, which is admittedly not mine, you can see it much better. If you're into megaliths, there are some interesting stone artifacts on this site.

Here on the left, you see a terrace with intricate stonework that reminds you a lot of the stonework you see around the world. In the middle, you can see a stone block that has decorations that are similar to the Chakana Cross that you see in South America. I actually watched one of Hugh Newman's videos, and he spends a fair bit of time with this stone. and, you know, I spent a lot of my time in Cambodia trying to find this stone too, so I was happy when I found it. There's this strange precision cut stone block, the bottom middle photo, that's actually very close to the other stone block. And then up on top, you can see this giant intact lingam. And the lingams like this are literally found in almost every temple in Cambodia in various states of disrepair. You know, the bases are really megalithic.

They're very precise. And what you'll see particularly when you go around Anchor Wat is they've just put Buddha statues right on top of these ancient Hindu monuments. So you'll see these really precise, amazing lingams all through the hallways of Anchor Wat with Buddhas on top of them. And you can tell very clearly that they don't belong together. Right. Now this, real quick, this photo in the top middle that looks like something you'd see in Peru, is that at the top of this pyramid? It's at the base of this pyramid. Okay, I've got to find that for sure. Yep. And so is that square box. As you're walking around before you climb to the top in the main entrance, look off to the left and you'll see all of these sitting over there. Yeah, that base of that lingam, I mean, you just see it's got the thick, chunky, puffy,

megalithic look, even looks like I'm seeing drill holes kind of around the protruding part. Yep. Yeah. And this particular one still has the piece that they call the Yoni that's in the middle of it. Very few of them do you see that second piece, which is why I wanted to put this picture in the presentation just because it's kind of rare to see them both together. The next site, which is a really interesting site, is Preyroop. I am not for certain.

Is it close to the anchor area? Yeah. It's just on the east side of the temple complex. Probably, yeah. If you don't have it in your itinerary, I highly recommend you at it. Okay. It's a three-tiered pyramid also made of laterite. It has five central towers.

When you look at the towers, you see the ladderite and the sandstone, but you also notice this third element that's just all over the site and that's red brick. The official story for why you find red brick at this site is that these bricks were inherited from earlier Khmerer traditions. So archaeologists view this temple as transitionary. Essentially they claim that the buildings in Cambodia began as brick-centric designs, and then they eventually evolved to the more megalithic sandstone and laterite buildings. similar to what you see around, you know, sites around the world, there's certainly this concept that we were simpler in the past and the distant past, and then we became more precise and more sophisticated

as time marched on. That's definitely what they're assuming with this site. And there are very megalithic aspects to this site. You know, carvings like this female figure made directly into sandstone blocks. There are precision cut walls where you can see one continuous, you a stone going around the corners, you know, just like you see at the Valley Temple in Egypt. Yep. And then on the right are these things called spindles, or that's what people call them. And they're effectively just these really ornate window dressings. I'm going to talk more about these later, but this is a really excellent example of the spindles that you can find on these sites.

Yeah, those stones that basically bend the corner, yeah, looks exactly like. like you see in Egypt even down in Sakara at a temple there. It has, I mean, other than the color, it's almost identical in look. It's crazy. And you know, you also see stones bend around corners down in Peru. So it's, you know, it's fairly universal, which is kind of interesting.

On this next side, you can see the brick versions of, you know, some of these features. The female figure carved into the brick, as you see here on the left, the precision cut spindles recreated in brick in the middle. And then at the bottom of the site as you're walking in, you'll see full towers made of brick that you can clearly tell are meant to be a copy of the towers that are still intact up on top.

I believe that these sites are built by a much older, much more advanced culture. And similar to what we see around the world, you know, later civilizations, possibly even the Khmer people, saw these amazing monuments, and they tried to rebuild and repair them. And I think they mimicked as best they could, the much more precise and difficult earlier building projects that they were uncovering in the places that they lived. It reminds me of the Inca in Peru who... Like this picture? There you go. Look at that. It's like you knew exactly what I was thinking.

Tell us about this. This is at the top of Machu Picchu. Anybody who's visited this site, you know, it's extraordinary to see the different building styles. You've got these very sophisticated megalithic bases and blocks. And then you have another version of these that, in my opinion, are later cultures trying to repair or mimic the older builders. and you get something like the picture you see on the right.

Yeah, you can see there are two completely different engineering styles. One is far superior on the left. Yeah, far superior. I think that's, if it's not granted, it's Andesite. It's a very hard stone up there. And then you've got just the Inca, you know, clay mortar and rough stone style. Yeah. Wow.

And, you know, that was a huge, jaha moment for me when we were hiking around, you know, this site. The guide that we had hired for the day, you spent the first part of our tour talking about how this site was a royal prematorium. And that these brick structures were brick because brick stood up well against fire. And that's the whole purpose of this site, which, you know, just it didn't feel right to me. and as we were walking through, of course, you start to notice these big megalithic bases and things like that and then the copied version of the brick. So this is really, this site was my aha moment as I was traveling. Did you just kind of go along with what your tour guide was saying, or did you kind of

push back at all? No, I've gotten to the point that I just, I don't push back. I ask questions mostly to try to understand the official story, but I have not met really any tour guides, with the exception of Hugh Newman. I think he does a good job of talking about what he sees and really thinks about the sites. But the official tour guides you hire everywhere, I just look at it as an interesting current version of events

and I always note it. Just grin and nod. Yeah, exactly, exactly. The next site, which I do believe you're going to, is Bantier-Sray. And I wanted to talk about this site simply because of how just incredibly unique it is. The site's located west of the Phnom Kulin National Park. So as you're coming back from the park, that's when we stopped at the site. It's really outside of this kind of core temple complex.

And it feels like a proper place of worship. Unlike the previous sites that we've just talked about that feel more like monuments, this one feels like a true temple. It has three central towers and two other buildings that they call libraries. And at Angkor, there are outbuildings that they call libraries as well, which who knows what they were really used for. I doubt it was libraries, but maybe it was. The whole site is constructed of red sandstone, which was quarry 30 kilometers. from the site. And this red sandstone, as I understand it, is really fine-grained. And so that allows for sharper and more durable carvings than what you see at the other sites. It, the carvings

absolutely blew my mind. They have almost a 3D quality to them. They sort of entrance you as you stand in front of them. You have to do everything you can to not touch them just because they're so incredible. You have to almost make sure they're real. So you can see one of those carvings here in the middle. It's a good close-up shot. And then on the left here, here's a close picture of what I believe to be one of the oldest version of these spindles. And if you look closely at them, you can see what look like latemarks. I've pointed them out in this picture. There's little yellow arrows you can see.

But you know, you can see this machined look to these things. Right. Reminds you a whole lot of, not just ancient things, but modern things that are laved. And what's the mainstream, what's the mainstream narrative with the tour guides

when they're being asked, how is this made? Hammer and chisel. So they just want you to ignore those machine marks right there by the yellow arrow. Yeah, and these are big. You know, they're probably this big around, maybe like nine inches or something like that. So when you stand up next to them, you know, it's really clear that these were not chiseled. Those are incredible to see the farther away picture and then this up close one here where you can clearly see what looks like you said,

latemarks, yet they're supposed to be from around 8 or 900 AD, when we know of the tools they had. Again, are we looking here at something from an older epoch, right? Exactly. I believe we are. Yeah, let's jump into Anchor Watt. The Crown Jewel of Cambodia, or maybe the world. This site is just a true enigma to me. I mean, the official construction date of Anchor Wat is 1,100 CE.

There were no inscriptions that specifically mentioned the construction, but archaeologists believe that I might butcher this king's name, but Soria Barman the second, they believe that he built it. And therefore, they assume that the construction dates align with his rule. So what they also say is that this entire complex, was built in 37 years. Wow. Yeah.

It's estimated there are 50 to 90 million stones in the Anchor Wat complex, which includes the temple itself, the causeway going up to the temple, and then the stones that completely surround the moat of the site. Excuse me. As you walk around the site across that bridge you see going over the water, you can see all of the water is fully lined by stones. Now, 50 to 90 million stones at anchor compares to about 2.3 million at the Great Pyramid of Giza. So, substantially bigger.

Yeah, it's crazy to see this picture of the moat surrounding it. You're saying on each side of that moat, it's lined with stones. Massive stones. I have a picture. I can send you later. of my sister-in-law standing on one of them, and she looks tiny standing on it, and literally the whole mode is surrounded by these things.

Incredible. Yeah. The most special day of the year in Anchor, guess what day it is? Solstice. Today. Spring solstice. The day we're recording this podcast.

Interesting. So in honor of spring solstice, I have included, a picture of the astronomical alignment that takes place on this site. On spring solstice, the sun rises directly over the central tower if you're standing on the main causeway, which is pretty incredible. Look at that. I can imagine there's a whole lot of people at that site today. Right directly over that. Yeah. When we were there, it was actually not very busy. I mean, a crowd like this is really nightmare fuel for me.

I absolutely can't stand that. Yeah, no thanks. But anyway, so happy spring solstice to you, Derek. Yeah. Wow, I didn't even don't even dawn on me that today was spring solstice. But here we are talking about Cambodia with the sun right over the largest temple point. Incredible. Yeah.

Ankurwatt is astronaut. but oddly it faces straight west and as I understand it almost every other temple in Cambodia and every other Hindu temple across the world faces east toward the rising sun so that is a real anomaly for Ankara Wat the archaeologists say you know this was the king's burial temple and when you're talking death and burials you face west again Again, I don't really buy that. I think that it was specifically faced west for a reason. I just don't know what it is.

And then this picture on the left is one of our cell phones. It's in one of the library spaces, which are these buildings out in the main causeway looking toward the temple. And you can see everything is just perfectly aligned. It's really amazing. And what's the phone saying there? Where is it pointed? There's a little compass on the phone. So that would be, you know, the phone would be, the picture is facing east.

And through that doorway, we're inside one of what they call the libraries. And so through that doorway, you can see the towers of Angkor. So something for you to try when you go to the site. Yeah. You know, one thing I noticed about Angkor is you can just see a great deal of where, tear. You know, I'm no expert on how quickly sandstone erodes, but these towers, they feel substantially more eroded than really any other temple in the area. New temples, old temples, this feels different. The center of the complex also feels older than some of the outer areas of the

complex. So pay attention to that when you're there, like as you approach the center and you climb up to the middle tower, everything just feels like it gets older and older. Well, yeah, this left, this left picture I'm looking at here, to my eye, this center structure that goes up appears, you know, older and more weathered than the left and right pieces that connect. It almost looks like it's been melted or like chemically altered. It has a very sphinx vibe to it. Right. Again, like it's way more ancient because you can just see the definition on the left and right pieces that connect.

Yeah. Looks like, you know, that was added much later. And again, let's point out real quick. A lot of people may not realize that, so you're saying a lot of this stuff is built with sandstone and some of these softer stones, which on the most scale of hardness might be like a three or four. but if this was made out of granite, which they probably did not have, that's why they used what they could find. Granite's like a seven or eight on the most scale of hardness with diamond being 10, right? So if this was made out of granite, imagine the precision that would have held up even more than we're seeing.

Similar to the structures you've seen like on Monorca, I think, and all that stuff that's made of limestone, it just kind of deteriorates. Yep, exactly. And, you know, Malta looks quite deteriorated. How old are those sites? Right. Yeah, so a really interesting aspect. The other kind of interesting thing is if you look at the iconography in the center of the site versus the outer areas of the site, in these outer walkways that go all the way around the center, you see these battle scenes.

And the reliefs are incredible. They're some of the neatest stonework I've seen. But the theme feels like people talking about, you know, glorifying kings, talking about day-to-day life, things like that. As you get to the center part of the temple complex, it's a lot of goddesses and, you know, pictures of people praying and worshiping. So it feels very different than the outer side of the temple. You see the same thing at the Bayon Temple, which is the one with the faces. The outer area has battle scenes. The inner area has goddesses.

So was the outer area added later? I think so. If you look at the spindles, one of our favorite topics, the spindles at Anchorwat are here in the middle of this picture. you'll see they're a different style from the ones that we talked about earlier. They look super, super weathered. And some of them you'll see that there were later carvings on the spindles. I think in this, maybe not in this center photo,

but if you just Google pictures of spindles at Anchor Wat, you'll see that they've carved little diamonds and circles and things on them. So they were trying to adorn them. You know, initially when I looked at these, I thought to myself, these aren't as old as the ones on the left. They're a newer version. The more I sort of thought about it and talked to other people, you know, like my family, they were standing here looking at these. And my sister-in-law said, you know, I think it might just be a different style that's really, really weathered. You know, if Anchor is incalculably old, who knows how long these are.

have been out there exposed to the elements. And are all the spindles stationary, or any of them did they turn in the past? Great question. I mean, they're all stationary today. Okay. Yeah. You know, as you go to the different sites,

it's kind of interesting, like Top Prom, you know, the one that's famous for the dinosaur carving, the picture in the top right, they don't even try to make spindles in these sites. They just carve a spindle-like. likeness into the walls. You know, so that site feels to me to be much newer than the ones that actually have these

real standalone spindles. Right. You'll see those all over the sites. And then, you know, of course, you have the much, much later version that is brick. Yeah. Yeah, the latest version, the brick version. Yep. There are other interesting tidbits around Anchor.

there are metal clamps in the stone. You can find these in the main causeway as you're walking across, just looked off to the left or the right, and you'll see a bunch of different versions of these, you know, all over the site. There is some very intricate stonework, kind of like we talked about earlier, or maybe not quite as cool,

but, you know, here's one of the goddesses I talked about that's in the center of the complex. And that's our guide putting a wrapped-up, you know, gum wrapper behind it. So it is carved in 3D. You can see it's, and it's fully sealed.

You can't slide the wrapper in from the top of the bottom. You can only stick it through. Wow. And then there was one kind of Egyptian-looking statue on the site that I thought you'd appreciate. So I included a picture of it here. The headless guy? Very, very smooth working.

You can tell for who knows how long people have been touching it. The foot is completely polished. Were the, I see toes on one foot. Was it pretty precision by the toes? Yeah, it looks a lot like the stuff you see in Egypt. Wow. I have a couple of pictures I took of toes because that's what nerds do that I can send you afterwards if you'd like.

Please, yeah, nerds look for the precision toes. So my favorite topic to talk about in Cambodia is this 2012 to 2016 LIDAR campaign that took place. They had two campaigns, and within these campaigns, they scanned 875 square miles of land. And to me, there are two really interesting discoveries just at Anchor Wat. you know, it's a whole different podcast to talk about the stuff that they found all over the country. But just at Angkor, you know, the photo on the left is a satellite view of the site. This is how it looks. Trees everywhere, you can't see anything.

The photo on the right is the LiDAR map. And I've added some arrows here to show two of the most interesting aspects of this. The first is a grid power. pattern of mounds that are all across the temple complex on the inside of the moat. Those are the ones I'm pointing out with arrows. They look small from the air, but they range from one to three meters high and 10 to 50 meters wide. So to put that into perspective, the biggest of these mounds are as tall as a basketball

hoop stretching the length of an Olympic swimming pool. Holy cow. And there are thousands of them. mounds with ponds, mounds with ponds in this grid-like pattern that just goes on and on and on. And today those are totally covered by the forest. Yeah. You know, I think I didn't know about these when I went, so I didn't walk around these areas looking for mounds. As I understand it, you can see the undulations if you walk, you know, this is actually quite a walk to go out to these corners.

where these are. And this would be on the back side of the site. And yeah, so I think you should probably go out there and check them out and see if you can find them. I'm going to get video evidence of the forgotten hidden mounds. So the scientists are calling these occupation mounds. They believe that people built elevated platforms to live above flood prone areas. I just, I don't buy that, especially inside this temple. where the moat does a really effective job of controlling water levels. And these towns aren't just at anchor. They're everywhere.

So of these sites that have massive mound fields laid out in just this massive grid pattern all across the country. You know, what is their purpose? Well, yeah, the, and then the thing on the bottom looks almost like a circuit board. Yeah, I'll talk about that next. So I think this is the most interesting thing they found in the LIDAR surveys. There's a large space. spiral structure, and this structure is located south of Angkor on the south side of the site. This feature consists of rectangular spiral embankments that form this grid-like pattern.

They are 1.5 kilometers long and 1.5 kilometers wide. And these raised earthbanks that you see are about a meter high. If you ask, what do the scientists think about this? They have proposed a couple of things. One, they think it could be a garden or an agricultural feature and that the spirals may hold spiritual significance tied to Khmer cosmology. Others have proposed that it was a staging area for the building process of Angkor that was just later abandoned.

But, I mean, in what world do they build something that massive? as a staging area or a garden. Well, a staging area wouldn't be detailed like this, an intricate. I mean, it's... Looks like a circuit board, doesn't it? If this is even just as old as, you know,

8, 900 AD like the mainstream, I mean, look at the detail we still see through LIDR. That is amazing. These aren't the only ones found in Cambod. There are three particular sites that have these that are all about 100 kilometers apart next to pretty important areas within the kind of broader Cambodian kind of area. So I have some theories about what these would be, but that's way too much to go into today. Maybe we can have another discussion about that.

Can you give us a 30-second nutshell version? It feels to me like it's some sort of an energy grid. And with Ancour being the core of this entire complex, if you have, say, say for example, it's harnessing the Earth's tolerant currents, and it's somehow connected to the central towers of the site. Would that not be an effective way to transmit energy, or sound or light or something across the empire.

Especially if you have multiple sites that have these, and these areas like this are always right next to water. So what does this giant moat around Angkor have to do with this broader system? I think the moat is more than just a pretty water feature. So I thought I'd wrap up just, spending some time talking about the things that we saw in Cambodia and how they relate to the things that we've seen at all of these other sites all across the world. Here are some of the famous step pyramids that we see all over the globe.

We've talked about this before, but these things are in so many different places and they all look very, very similar. So I think that's pretty interesting. Yeah. the metal plant marks that you see at Angkor, you know, they have two different shapes just in this one picture that I took. If you look at Bolivia, Tijuana, you see one very similar to the one on the bottom. And then at Karnak in Egypt, you have one that looks almost identical to the one right there at the top. I think these clamps are old. They indicate a very ancient site.

Yeah, I mean, just the weathering. the Anchor Wat block on the left? Yeah. I mean, it looks, that weathering looks more than what you're seeing in Karnak there or Tijuana. Yeah, it looks very old. The other thing you'll notice on the blocks, especially in the causeway, is there are these, these holes that are, you know, maybe the size of like an orange or something smaller in, stamped all the way across these stones.

And I did ask our guide what those were. And he told me it's what they used to. So they believed that they floated these stones down from the quarries that were up in the mountains, down the rivers, and that they used elephants to get them to the sites. And he told me that the holes in the rocks are where they put basically wood and stakes through in order to move and carry the stones. Don't believe it. You know, I'd love to get your thoughts on what you think those are when you actually have a

chance to see them. Yeah, and I'm going to, it would be incredible to actually find the mechanism that went inside the markings there. That's an amazing side by side there. Yeah, it's, it's pretty neat. You know, I've actually seen these other two sites. you know, you and I have both been to Bolivia. You know, the stuff you see there is just absolutely mind-blowing.

Yeah, and if you, I mean, if you, like, for example, like you're saying, Bolivia, Tijuana and Puma-Punku, if you get into the actual dating of these sites, what the, you know, kind of what the ancient Andean legends say and what the, I think it was Puznowski, he was an archaeologist. Yeah. Most of the excavations there, way back in the, you know, the day. I don't know if it was the 20s or the 50s. He believes Tewanaku dates around 15,000 years ago. Yeah, or is it older? Right. I mean, it's just incredible to consider, right? Yeah. You know, if you don't believe in cataclysms, that's a good site for changing your mind.

So if we move on to some of the precision stonework that you'll see in Cambodia versus some of the other sites, you know, we talked about this earlier, the stones that continue around the corner, here is a picture of the Valley Temple site. And then, you know, there are other small stones placed just right in the middle of these other massive, you know, precision fit stones. And in honor of your upcoming trip to Peru and Easter Island, Derek, I included a picture of Easter Island there. That's the top thing I'm actually looking for on Easter Island is that center stone.

Yep. I would be exactly the same. That and the moyes that are the full body with the feet and everything. I'd be looking for those too. Oh, exactly. Yeah. I mean, this is the last megalific wall that I know of that's still on Easter Island. island that looks so close to what you see in Kusko.

Yep. But there you, I love it because right there in Cambodia, they've got the little center stone as well. Look at that. It's like they're showing off. There's really no reason for something like that except to say, look what I can do. So here's again the, you know, Chicana cross motif and the very Andean feeling to some of the stones we found.

And then the side by side. of some of the things in Bolivia and Peru. This bottom left stone, there's, you know, if you go up to the Nam Kulen National Park where, you know, you see the thousand lingos in the river and that site, up by the waterfalls, there's a temple site that, that, like, you almost can't even find on the internet.

You can't really find it on the maps. And, you know, we sort of stumbled across it and walked around and it's in full disrepair, but that bottom left photo is a stone that we saw there, which I just found totally fascinating. Yeah, it looks multi-layered and there's eroded, but there's two, you know, basically squirish-looking holes that go through the center, huh?

Mm-hmm. With, you know, the layers, if you look at Puma Punku, almost identical layers with these corners built into them. Yeah, very, very cool. And then, of course, in that upper left photo, you've got the drill holes on the left and right. Yep. You know, that's what they stuck the wooden beams in to lift it up. Ancient machining, this artifact in the left is in the Ancourt National Museum.

It's one of maybe two interesting things in that whole museum. It's really a ho-hum museum. If you don't have time to get there, you're not really missing anything. But this is one of the things that's in there. And so you can see the marks, the lathe marks or the drill marks around the outside of that. And it's a big artifact. And it, you know, it reminds me a little bit of kind of the famous core number seven in Egypt. It also reminds me of the so-called sarcophagus in the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid.

if you get up close to it kind of like this photo here and I've got video photo footage of this you see the exact same you know microscopic machine cut marks that fashion that box I don't believe it was a sarcophagus I think it was you know some kind of energy casing

or a casing for some kind of energy device that went inside Yeah. Because it wouldn't have fit in the tiny square entrance that you go through to get into the King's Chamber. Which means it was there and they built around it. Yeah, it was part of the original part of the structure. Mm-hmm. But that's fascinating.

Look at that. And what was the name of that part of the Lingam? Oh, the Yoni. The Yoni, the female or the male? Oh, sorry. Yeah. This is the male part of the Lingam. I believe. Again, I'm not an expert on that. And then, you know, if you talk about the spindles,

I have not been to India yet. I really want to go. But these are, these are what are also believed to be laid pillars. And these are huge inside all these temples in India, which I can't wait to see in real life. And then finally, to drive home the dating aspect of these sites, on the left here, you see the inscription used to date the Bantier Stray's site. So this is the red sandstone site that we talked about earlier. You know, I find it very hard to believe that the same culture that created the carvings you see here also wrote that inscription. And that inscription, you'll see it in the site. It's along a doorway, you know, just like that first pyramid we talked about. If you compare that to other sites around the world, the Barbar Caves in India,

have been dated based on this inscription, which looks very different than the inside of those caves. And you talked about earlier, the Colossus of Ramsey's. You know, you've got this perfect statue that's massive. And then you've got this graffiti on his left shoulder indicating that Ramsey's the second is the one who built it. Right. And look at the, I mean, the mind-blowing, muscle tone of the knee and legs there.

If only we could all have legs like that. I mean, the mind-blowing muscle tone, there's no way a chislin hammer could ever accomplish that. A chislin hammer could accomplish the graffiti in the shoulder. Absolutely. That's really what I had for you regarding, regarding at least what I viewed as the oldest sites that I toured in Cambodia. I am super excited for you to go.

And, you know, I'd love to see your pictures when you get back. Oh, yeah. We'll have to do a follow-up episode and compare notes. I wanted to hear about your Stargate experience. That kind of caught my attention. At the Bayon Temple. So that's the temple with the big towers with the faces on them. So we walked into the temple and, you know,

immediately you get this feeling that it's, you know, that it's this very sacred place. Like the energy is unlike very many places I've been in this world. And as you walk around, it feels like inside the core of the temple, which again was built earlier than the outsides of the temple. The core of the temple feels like it's leading you through this maze that in every, inevitably takes you right to the center of the temple where the big tower with the faces are. And, you know, my sister-in-law and I, we were walking around the site. And we were both just, you know, we had this sense that it was, it felt very feminine.

It felt very sacred. And as we, as we walked around, we just got quieter and quieter. And, you know, by the time we reached the middle of the temple, we felt almost like we couldn't talk anymore. It just felt, you know, like it was almost disrespectful to talk. And we walked by this doorway, so it's one of those famous kind of closed, fake false doors. And without really saying anything, both of us just sat down right in front of this door. And at the top of the door, there's these images of these goddesses praying. And so we sat in front of.

of the doorway. And I'm not a particularly good meditator, as I think most people probably feel about themselves. I immediately slipped into this just incredibly peaceful state, and so did she, so did Stacey. And we're sitting in front of this doorway, and I have no idea, Derek, how much time passed. You know, eventually, God bless him, my husband just sort of pops his head around the corner and he's like, are you girls ready to go? I have no idea how long we were sitting there.

But it was truly special and it felt a lot like a Stargate to me. It almost sounds like you're describing like you might have went through a time slip or something in a sense where hours felt like seconds? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I think realistically, we were probably sitting there for half an hour. But it didn't feel like half an hour. I mean, it was long enough that my very patient husband came and found us.

It was really special. I can, I did send you a picture of it earlier if you want to include it in, in the show. But yeah, it's, it's a really special temple. And which temple is that? The Bayonne temple. And that's the one with the gigantic faces, correct? Yeah, right in the middle of Anchortem, which is that north area I showed at the beginning, right in the center of that. And all the gates going into that area from the four sides also have the faces. Incredible. Yeah, I cannot wait to see those.

They're so imposing, you know. Yeah. In one photo I saw, there was, you know, one angle of this temple. There was hidden faces appearing all over. interestingly, there's 216 faces in that temple. And if you remember earlier when I talked about the sacred number 108, it's exactly double that. I think that's probably for a reason.

I think so. Well, Cassie, thank you for putting together this incredible PowerPoint presentation. If anybody didn't know much about Cambodian anchor watt, now they do. I love how you didn't just give us kind of the mainstream bullet points of what they say, but your spin on what you really think is going on. And then some of those LIDAR scans, I had never seen that. That was incredible.

The spindles, out of place artifacts, there's definitely more going on than we've been led to believe. And just seeing how they, so much of what you see right there in Cambodia, dovetails with what you see in Egypt, in Peru, in Bolivia. This was global, right? Yeah. It had to be. Yeah. So tell us where your next adventures are with you and Blake and Andy and Stacey.

The next small trip I have planned, I'm actually going to New York. York City in May and joining, I don't know if you've seen them advertise it, but Uncharted X and you know, brothers of the serpent are doing a, I think an afternoon at the Met and then an evening at the Explorers Club. So I'm actually going to that, which, you know, I love both of their shows. And so I'm excited to meet them in real life. That's awesome. Tell Benny needs to get you on his show. Yeah, I'll do that. Send him a link to this interview.

I'll look me right away. He'll be blown away. Well, that's awesome. Stacey, how can people connect with you if they want to learn more about this or, I don't know, keep up with you on anything else? Yeah, I mean, I don't, I'm not a prolific social media user. I have private accounts if people are interested in, I guess, following me on Instagram. It's Cassie.coptersmith, so c-a-s-s-S-S-I-E dot C-O-P-P-E-R-S-N. ITH. You know, if you want to just email and chat and catch up about some of these sites,

email might be the best way to do it. So that's cassie.coppersmith at gmail.com. Amazing. Well, Cassie, again, thank you for all the hard work and research you put into this. I think people are going to really be excited to see this episode. And let me just plug my tour coming up and I think Cassie will confirm you should join this tour. We're calling it the Secrets of Cambodia tour. It's coming up this November and we're going to see most of these temples and sites that she showed us in this amazing episode, especially Anchor Watt. And we're partnering with what I think is one of the best tour companies in Cambodia. They've been really awesome to work with so far. And we have the price, Cassie. Can you be able to be?

believe this. We have a price of $9.99 right now through the end of, I think, this month. It ends March 31st, and then the price goes up. But this is like a seven or eight day tour. It includes everything except your international flight. So all you got to do is get to the airport there. We pick you up. Itinerary is taken care of. I think almost all meals, two meals a day are included. of course, transportation and all the sites, tickets, English speaking guides, and of course, I'll be there. I wish we had a Cassie, though. But this is going to be amazing. Don't you think that sounds like a pretty good deal?

Not just that, Derek. I mean, Cambodia is cheap. So once you're on the ground, hotels are really affordable. I think we had a four-course meal at one of the nicest restaurants in CM-Reap, and the whole thing was $60. So it's a really a really cheap place to travel, which is really nice. Cheap is good. Well, Cassie, thank you so much. And let's do this again in the near future.

Sounds great, Derek. Thanks so much for having me.