A new IMAX film documentary featuring the work of scientists from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) is on show in the Los Angeles’ California Science Centre in the United States.
Celebrating the film’s release, ANSTO declared that Angkor 3D: The Lost Empire of Cambodia unveiled the mysteries behind the Angkorian Empire, a world that is Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and southern Vietnam today.
ANSTO said the film was made by Australian director Murray Pope and features the Organisation’s Principal Research Scientist, Quan Hua and the accelerator mass spectrometry facility at its Lucas Heights campus in NSW.
It said radiocarbon dating of the speleothem (geological formations by mineral deposits) using accelerator mass spectrometry (a tool that measures molecules) at ANSTO’s Centre for Accelerator Science helped to reconstruct climate variability for Cambodia for the last millennium.
ANSTO said the radiocarbon dating covered the entire Angkor period in the 9th-15th centuries.
“At the height of its power between the 11th and 13th centuries, Angkor was a resplendent city, considered the most extensive urban complex of the pre-industrial world,” ANSTO said.
“But 19th-century European visitors found most of this capital of the Khmer empire was overrun by the surrounding forests,” it said.
“The people of Angkor left not a single word explaining why their kingdom was abandoned.”
ANSTO said Mr Pope was hopeful that the film would make it to IMAX cinemas in Australia.
A trailer of the Angkor film, with sound, can be accessed at this PS News link.
