The damaged western entrance of Pre Rup. Pre Rup is a temple at Angkor, Cambodia, built as the state temple of Khmer king Rajendravarman and dedicated in 961 or early 962. It is a temple mountain of combined brick, laterite and sandstone construction. The temple’s name is a comparatively modern one meaning "turn the body". This reflects the common belief among Cambodians that funerals were conducted at the temple, with the ashes of the body being ritually rotated in different directions as the service progressed.
Engineering is the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man - Thomas Tredgold. Angkor Wat is an amazing work of Khmer architecture. It shows that symmetry and repetition were very important to Khmer design: galleries with columns, towers, curved roofs, tympanums, steps and the cross-shaped plan occur again and again. Spreading over 30 years, the construction of the temple required about 6 to 10 million blocks of sandstone with an average weight of 1.5 tons each. The blocks were transported from Mount Kulen, a quarry approximately 40 km to the northeast, thru a series of canals.
