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Hidden Temples of the Khmer Civilization

Photographs by Alistair Baird

Alistair Baird is a professional photographer and contributor to the magazine Black and White Photography. As a child, he was a regular consumer of National Geographic Magazine, which gave him his first glimpses into foreign lands. Alistair spent this first trip to Cambodia in 2007 exploring the main sites of Angkor Wat and returned in 2008 to document other ancient sites of the Khmer civilization.

The Khmer Civilization of Cambodia lasted from the 9 th – 15 th centuries. The seat of their empire is known as Angkor , now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Since only temples were made of stone, they are the only examples of Khmer architecture that survive today, the most famous of which is Angkor Wat. Both Hindu and Buddhist temples exist at Angkor , being patronized by kings of different religions. Angkor contains over one thousand temples in different states of ruin

The images in this series show the crumbled ruins of the ancient Khmer sites. Many of the photographs are sepia-toned. Full of shadows, they seem to hold a certain mystery, an almost fantasy landscape. A selection of Photographs will be on show at the Museum of East Asian Art from 22 nd April until the 31 st August 2008 .

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