What you see

The site is divided into three main temple groups — the northern group (Prasat Sambor), central group (Prasat Tao), and southern group (Prasat Yeay Poan) — spread through forest and connected by dirt paths. The towers are built in brick using a construction technique (using a vegetable compound as mortar, now largely dissolved) that gives the brick faces their characteristic “carved” appearance, as the decorative elements were applied directly to the dried brick surface. Among the most distinctive features are the octagonal sanctuary towers, which appear nowhere else in Cambodian temple architecture and mark a unique experimental phase in the evolution of Khmer design.

The jungle atmosphere is exceptional. Many towers are embraced by the roots of enormous strangler fig trees whose aerial roots have grown down over the brick walls over twelve centuries, creating tree-and-temple compositions directly comparable to the famous tree-roots of Ta Prohm at Angkor — but here encountered in a site that receives only a tiny fraction of Angkor’s visitors, making for a more intimate and meditative experience. The carved lintels, where they survive in situ, depict scenes from the Ramayana and Mahabharata that show the early Sambor Prei Kuk style developing toward the mature Angkor idiom.