Megalithic Marvels - Inside Cambodia's Mysterious Golden Mountain Temple

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

One of the sites that shook me most on my recent Cambodia tour was a site that I had never even heard of before - the Baphuon: Cambodia's Mysterious Golden Mountain Temple! Now mainstream archaeology states that this amazing structure dates from 1010–1050 A.D. - but is there more to the story? Was this temple actually constructed on top of a much older precision megalithic base? In this episode I take you on a virtual 4K tour around the Baphuon to show you what I saw with my own eyes.EGYPT, PERU, EASTER ISLAND, PETRA, ISRAEL - JOIN ME ON A 2026 TOUR

I'm going to take you to an incredible site that I was just at in Cambodia, known as Bapuan. And this is a mysterious site. It's very little known, but I believe it may have been built on a much older megalithic foundation. I'm going to show you a 4K virtual tour of this site and point out to you what I saw in my theories. So make sure to subscribe and on Spotify, please give me a five-star rating or review that really helps me break through the algorithm. and climb the charts. And don't forget to check out megalithic marvels.com slash tours where you can see our lineup of 2026 tours on tap.

We've got our tour to Israel and Petra this March. It's going to be incredible. In May and June, we've got our tours to Peru and Easter Island. And then coming December, 2006, we have our Egypt tour, which is going to be off the chain, and we're likely going to be adding one more tour to the lineup for 2006. So check megalithic marvels.com slash tours or go to the link in the show notes below to be directed there. So we just enjoyed the most epic trip to Cambodia where I was joined by almost 50 other friends.

It was one of my largest tours ever. And we explored Anchor Wat in Bayon Temple and all of the most incredible temples and ancient sites in this CEMs. Cambodia area. And it was really incredible because I counted about half the group had been on previous tours with me before. There was literally 20 plus people who had been on not just two, but some of them three tours with me on other tours I've led to Egypt and Peru and Easter Island and even England. So it was a very special tour because to have a group of almost 50 and then have almost half of them be who I consider to be friends that have joined me on other trips. It was just a special time.

And it was cool to meet all the new friends as well. But I just wanted to give a shout out to everybody who came on a previous tour with me before that was on this tour. And that was David Jeff, Hank, John, Christy Michael, Mary Stephen, Tom Alana, Carly Jason, Kim, Larry, Lisa, Robin, Michelle, Risha, Scott, Willie, James, and Stephen. You guys are incredible. Thank you for trusting me and our team with your lives on all these tours. It was so incredible to hang out with you. And it's just really exciting to have this many people come on tours and repeat tours who are from all over the world. We had people from Australia and New Zealand, actually quite a big group. We had people from Switzerland on this tour. We had people from all over the U.S. and different

States and Canada. So it was just an incredible time getting to experience Cambodia for the first time myself. It's always special when everything is new. It was so amazing to experience the culture and the people of Cambodia. It's some of the most amazing people I've ever met. They're so hospitable. They're so kind. It's really incredible. Whether it's the hotel staff, the bus drivers, just the merchants on the street. Everybody wants to help you. It seems. like and is very helpful, hospitable. The food is great in Cambodia and the coffee is amazing. I'm a coffee snob from the Seattle area. So I drink three, four cups a day. I have my own espresso machine. I am custom making iced lattes all day. And so one fear or hesitation I can have when traveling sometimes is, will there be enough good coffee? I hate to say it, but in Egypt, the coffee's not that great. In Peru and England, the coffee's not that great. But in Cambodia, they had these little coffee stands everywhere, coffee shops.

Speaking of coffee, I just needed a little coffee break. But we had Cassie Coppersmith, by the way, on the tour. I connected with her a couple years ago on our England tour. She's amazing. She's launched a YouTube channel called Secrets in Stone. Everybody go follow it. But it was such an honor to have her on this Cambodianian. to her with me, co-hosting, bringing her expertise. And so we captured all kinds of content

together and we're actually going to do an episode together in a few weeks breaking down the entire trip, showing you anomalies. So look forward to that. So Cassie, thank you for joining me. But I got to say right off the top, probably my two favorite sites that I saw on this trip were the CoCare Pyramid, which I'm going to have a lot of content coming out about. And another little known site known as the Golden Mountain Temple, otherwise known as Ba Puan. Now let me set up what I'm about to say with the site with a little bit of context, because the mainstream narrative says that most of the temples that we see in the Seam Reap Cambodia area were made by the Khmer, it's pronounced, or Khmer, but most people say Khmer builders,

who lived about circa 800 to 1400 AD. And the mainstream narrative basically says that this Khmer civilization built all these temples using huge slave armies, ropes, wooden rollers, elephants, and boats. And it just took them a lot of time and they just eventually built these pyramids. But I and Cassie and a growing group of others believe there is so much more going on here in Cambodia than we've been told. And as you get on the ground and you visit these sites, you see all these anomalies. You see these metal clamped crevices everywhere. You see 3D ornate carvings.

You see depictions of prehistoric and even Ice Age mammals embedded into the walls. You see these massive motes, also known as berets, which are the largest cut on earth. You see giant precision lingums, precision spindles that literally show. lathe marks. You see huge megalithic blocks that look like Legos featuring 90 degree angles, interlocking nubs, and what even looks like drill holes all over. In 2012 through 16, there was Lidar scans of Anchor Wat that revealed these incredible grid patterns of the mounds inside the moat at Anchor Wat and massive grid patterns on the outside of the moat that measure like one mile long and literally look like circuit boards from the air. It's crazy to see. The point is,

I believe there's so much more to the ancient history of the area presently known as Cambodia than we've been told. And one of my favorite sites from the trip, as I said on the outset of this video, was a site that I had never even heard of before, didn't even know it had existed, and it's known as the Bapuon. And this is a temple, located in Anchor Tom. Anchor Tom is a Khmer word meaning the great city as it was the capital of the Khmer Empire which lasted from about 802 to 1431 AD. But again, as I will share in a few minutes, I believe parts of this site, namely much of the base of the site could be much older than they're telling us. Again, the site known as the Bapuwan is also called the Golden Mountain

in Sanskrit. And Bapawan, more or less, means something like the divine mountain of the three worlds. Again, a Khmer name that reflects its symbolic role as a temple mountain. It's interesting that all over the world we find these pyramids, we find mounds, and we find in Cambodia these temple mountain pyramids. It's like, as above, so below. It's this mountain cosmology. It's where it's like they were trying to reflect heaven on earth almost, if that makes sense, or their version of it.

Because as you approach this amazing temple, you realize that it's built on an artificial hill. It's a mound underneath it. And this structure is like a three-tiered pyramid or temple mountain, as they call it. And as you're going to see here, if you're watching by video on YouTube or Spotify, by this temple is known for its grand entrance, its huge scale, and the impressive reliefs, especially those on the second enclosure of the top level. And the temple orients to the east, beginning with a Gopora, whose northern end connects with the terrace of the elephants.

Now this word, Gopura is a monumental gateway. That's what it means, a monumental tower or gateway that marks the entrance to a temple complex or the entrances between enclosures. And this Gopura retains some divata carvings on its western side. Now this word devata means basically a female deity or divine figure carved in stone on temple walls. Now leading from the central portal of this Gopora is a grand terrace that rises up around the sandstone columns and is flanked by basins on either side. and each of the Goporah's on this level features stunning reliefs of Hindu mythology adorning the outer walls. Now this temple was originally dedicated to Shiva but was later converted into a Buddhist temple.

And on the backside of the site, when you look up, it's pretty incredible to see, you see this huge 30 foot tall by 230 foot long statue of a record. declining Buddha that was built into the West Side's second level. This thing is massive, which probably required the demolition of an eight-meter tower that once stood above it to supply stones for the statue, thus explaining its current absence. Now, archaeologists believe that large portions of the temple had probably already collapsed by the time the Buddha was added later. Now, what's crazy is that when you take a step back and gaze at this site from afar, which is what I did. I was up close and I was so amazed, but then I went back away just to get perspective.

And that's when you realize that this temple appears to sit on this massive black, like 20 foot tall, nine-tiered, precision sandstone base that looks a lot different and even superior to much of the construction that was built on top of it, especially the giant Buddha area that I just described. Now, the base in the lower areas feature literally this airtight mortarless engineering, whereas the higher temple areas, where the reclining Buddha is are different.

They're smaller stones. They're just squared, and you can see the gaps between them like it was added later. So what I saw at this site was very similar to what I've seen in Peru, especially like at Machu Picchu, where you get to the center of the site, and you see that the Inca construction, which is the small stone and more, and even some clay is built on top of a megalithic base that goes from the ground to about four feet up. It's this white mortarless, huge granite blocks, precision. And then it's like cataclysm hit, knocked it over, only the foundation survived.

And then the Inca came along eons later and built with their inferior construction on top of the megalis. It felt similar to what I saw at this site, Bapuan. Now, there was a Chinese envoy named Zhu Daguan who visited the Khmer Kingdom in the late 13th century. And he visited Bapuon and described it as, quote, an exquisite site with a bronze tower, a truly astonishing spectacle with more than 10 chambers at its base, end quote. Now I find this quote very interesting because he mentions the base of the site like he was astonished by it like I was. And I wonder what he means specifically by 10 chambers at its base. Because when you look at this massive 20 plus foot tall base, you can kind of count the different layers, precision layers.

And I count at least 9 or 10 going from bottom to top. So is that what this guy was describing or was there more to it that has been lost? Now in 2015, a French archaeological team using the Carbon-14 dating method revealed the construction of Bapuwan was older than previously thought and can now be considered as the major temple associated with Saravaraman, the first, this Khmer ruler, from about 110 to 110 to 1,000. 150 AD. So that's what the latest mainstream dating of the site is about 1,000 to 150 AD. Before that, the mainstream told us that this site was from the 16th century. So right here, the site just got 500 plus years older overnight based on new dating methods, which is kind of interesting. But again, I believe it might be even way older than that. and I'm going to get to it in just a minute. But this latest carbon-14 dating seems to confirm that

adding the giant reclining Buddha wall was related to the later Ayutthayan occupation of Encore around the 1430s during a major period of political and religious instability. Now, here's where it gets really interesting to me. In my research, I found out that this site was first cleared in modern times in 1908 by a French guy named Jean Camille or Camale, I believe. And when he cleared it, the site was mostly in ruin, he states. Now, it's really hard to track down old photos. But in 1960, someone named BP Grosslier began an ambitious restoration program of dismantling the ruins of Bapuan in order to resolve the structural issues that they believed were inherent in its original plan.

And so they were going to take the temple all apart, and then they were going to put concrete stabilizers in it in beams, and then they were going to reconstruct the site. It sounded like a good plan, right? So this guy, Groslier and his team start to dismantle this temple. they take some 300,000 blocks apart and lay them in the jungle grass around the site. Again, their plan was to rebuild it. But then guess what happens?

The communist Khmer Rouge party sweeps to power in 1975. You guys have probably heard of the killing fields and the horrible atrocities that happened in Cambodia. That was during this time. and so therefore work stopped until a French-led team of archaeologists finally began to reassemble the temple in 1995 under the guidance of a guy named Pascal Royer. Now, without the benefit of Groslier's original plans from 1960, this guy, Royer had to figure out how to reassemble the 300 stone blocks that were laid out on the ground from scratch. And it only took him, guess what, 16 years to solve the massive puzzle. And then the site eventually reopened in 2011. Now, when Royer first showed up with his team in 1993 to begin work on the project, he describes how it was just all grass and jungle.

It had grown over most of the site. And Bapawan was based. just covered in jungle. And he spent much of 1994 just trying to figure out how to approach this insanely complicated job. And Royer stated this, quote, the archive of the numbering system for scattered stones was stolen and destroyed by the Khmer Rouge. So we had to face a kind of jigsaw puzzle without the picture how to rebuild it. Reconstruction required measuring and weighing each block, as well as numerous drawings to figure out how each part fits. Each block has its own place. It can't be replaced by another one because there's no mortar between them, and you will not find two blocks that have the same volume and the same dimensions. So that's quite a

statement from the lead archaeologist piecing the temple back together that not one stone was the same. Now, I found it interesting. I found an old UNESCO article from around 2012 concerning Bapawan's restoration. And I found this statement very interesting. The article says, quote, the cause of its ruin was easy to understand. The Bapuan had manifestly been badly built. The high sandstone plines enclosed the quantity of sand filling needed to build the three-story structure. but the proportion of the mix was not right and could not ensure long-term stability.

The result was severe stress, which led to structural distortion, slanting walls, and occasionally to collapse of the structure at a very early stage, end quote. So essentially, UNESCO here is saying that this incredible temple was, quote, badly built, end quote. Now, after seeing this side in person up close, after traversing through it, and also after scouring all these old photos that I found from the 60s era restoration, I can see how the upper part of the structure, the temple, was in ruins and, you know, was falling apart. and I can see how they, from that they would get that it was, you know, badly built. But when I look at the photos from the 60s, I don't necessarily see the base ripped apart and in ruins dilapidated. I see a precision base, just like I saw a few weeks ago. I saw an upper temple that was clearly inferior to the base structure.

and therefore I can imagine how the upper portions again would have been falling apart if they were just added later. So my point is from these old photos and from what I saw with my own eyes, it looks like the restoration team from the 60s did take apart the upper portions of this structure, but they did not take apart the whole base or much of the base from what I can see, but only would have been built on top of it. So with all of that, I would submit to you this question. And I would love to see you answer on YouTube or Spotify with a comment. Let me know what you think.

Is the base of this site much older to your eye than the rest of a site that appears to me to have been built on top of the base? Was the base engineered by an earlier lost civilization who possessed safe, knowledge and ancient technology. And then did the Khmer builders arrive circa 800 to 1400 AD, find this incredible base and say to themselves as the Inca did in Peru, this thing is otherworldly. This is superstructure, this base. Instead of just building our temple on the jungle floor, let's build our temple on top of this epic base and repurpose the site and claim it as our own and improve upon it or what they thought was improving upon it with the best they could. Again, the base of this site is made of sandstone. And something important to point out that Cassie pointed out on our tour was at the sandstone, which is what the most incredible pieces are made of in Cambodia at these sites.

the megalithic pieces that look superior to the other upper portions is made of sandstone. But the sandstone in Cambodia is a harder sandstone than you might find in Egypt. The sandstone in Egypt, I believe, is like a three or four on the Moes scale. But the sandstone that comes from Cambodia is closer to a six or seven on the Moes scale, almost approaching the hardness of granite, which is why I believe these giant megalithic looking blocks appear to be in such great shape despite what I believe is very old age and weathering. So again, you have a base that's sandstone, this harder material. And then a lot of the temple structures built on top are made of laterite, which is a much

softer stone that almost kind of looks like coral. You see lots of pockmarks in it. And it's like a three on the Moes scale. But again, if you're watching this on video via Spotify or YouTube, you're going to see the mind-blowing video footage as I walk around the corners of this base, which is at least 20 to 25 plus foot tall. I was literally blown away by the precision corners and edges of this base. I mean, they're pointed. They're sharp. It's like artistically nine or ten layers high.

And so leave me a comment, everybody on YouTube on Spotify. Do you believe the base of this structure predates what appears to be the temple built on top of it? Well, I hope you really enjoyed this episode. A quick reminder to subscribe to this show again from wherever you're watching. Give me a five-star rating on Spotify. Go to megalithic marvels.com. tours and check out the lineup of incredible tours for 2006 that are coming up. This March, we are going on our Holy Land Tour of Israel and Petra.

It's going to be off the chain. Amazing. We're not only going to see the must-see Bible sites, but we're going to go off-trail and find ancient sites associated with the Nephilim. We're going to go under the western wall tunnels and see the megalithic walls. Then we're going to go to Petra and see. what I believe was a rock city made with lost technology. Then in May we've got our Peru and Easter Island tours. This is going to be the best Peru and Easter Island tours we've ever done.

So don't miss it. And we've got a couple special surprises on this tour. And then coming in December of 2006, early December, starting December 1st, we have our Egypt tour with renowned Egyptologist and author Muhammad Ibrahim, who has... really broken with the mainstream and is in the alternative history camp. He believes the pyramids were made by a lost civilization by at least 12,000 plus years ago. So go to megalithicmarvels.com slash tours to learn all about these tours, to see the itinerary, and to lock in some of the early bird discounts we still have available. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please share this with a few friends. If you enjoyed this, send them the YouTube link, send them the Spotify link,

and until next time, keep exploring.