02/11/2026
Baphuon is a grand temple-mountain built in the mid-11th century around 1060 AD in the reign of King Udayadityavarman II and consecrated to the Hindu god Shiva to represent Mount Meru, the sacred center of the universe, though the western side of its second tier was later partially dismantled to construct a massive 70-meter-long reclining Buddha that is still visible today. Structurally, the temple was built by piling loose sand within sandstone retaining walls, but over the centuries, heavy monsoon rains seeped into the sand core, washing it out and building up immense hydraulic pressure that caused the outer stone walls to buckle and collapse into thousands of pieces. To save it, the EFEO launched what became known as the world's largest 3D jigsaw puzzle restoration project, systematically dismantling and cataloging around 300,000 stone blocks across 10 hectares between 1960 and 1970. Although the work ground to a complete halt from 1975 to 1995 due to war—during which the archive building containing all the catalog records and measurement books was tragically destroyed, leaving hundreds of thousands of stones stranded without a master guide—a French team led by architect Pascal Royère returned from 1995 to 2011, using early computer modeling, historical photographs, and architectural geometry to re-identify and piece the temple back together. Funded primarily by the French government at a cost of $10 to $13 million, this remarkable 51-year project relied on over 200 Cambodian workers, stone masons, and technicians working alongside French experts to return all 300,000 carved sandstone blocks to their original positions before the fully restored temple was officially reopened to the public on July 3, 2011.
SiemReapTourGuide Temple
