Just last year, a team of archeologists announced that they had used LiDAR to map 370 square kilometers around the world’s biggest religious complex—Cambodia’s Angkor Wat—in less than two weeks. Not only did this uncover a series of unexpected discoveries about the once lost city of Angkor, but it also revealed an even older city that archeologists had a sneaky suspicion lay hidden nearby.
This long-lost city, called Mahendraparvata, lay atop the Phnom Kulen mountain in the Siem Reap Province. This city was the original capital of the mighty Khemer Empire which was founded by a king called Jayavarman II. Mapping revealed almost 30 previously unknown temples alongside evidence of an extensive urban structure including canals, a grid of ceremonial boulevards, man-made ponds and roads. Some of these temples were so well hidden that the team believes they may never have been looted in the past.
LiDAR was also used back in 2009 to help construct a 3D map of an ancient Maya city in western Belize called Caracol. This metropolis was once again shielded by thick vegetation, and in less than one week the team collected more information about it than they had in a quarter of a century hacking through the tangled jungle. They found a plethora of agricultural terraces, roads and structures that were all previously unknown.
