A cotton silk tree over a carved doorway at the Ta Prohn Temple, near siem Reap, Cambodia

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The temple at Ta Prohm is in the eastern group of the Angkor complex, near Siem Reap in Cambodia. It dates from the late 12 – 13th century and was originally a temple-monastery. It differs from the others in that a decision was made by the école Français d’Extrême Orient to leave it in its “natural state” and to keep it as most of the temples must have looked when they were discovered in the 19th century. The best feature of the temple today is the way the strangler figs and the silk cotton trees have been allowed to grow and entwine themselves among the ruins. The roots are powerful enough to force open the joints between the stones, giving a ruined look to the walls etc. The temple was used as a location in the Lara Croft Tomb Raider film.

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Size: 3723px × 5600px
Location: Ta Prohn Temple, part of the Angkor complex, near Siem Reap, Cambodia
Photo credit: © Brian Hartshorn / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: angkor, brown, carved, cotton, croft, doorway, explore, fig, lara, monastery, overgrown, pale, portal, prohn, raider, reep, roots, ruins, siem, silk, strangler, ta, temple, tomb, tree