Angkor (Khmer: អង្គរ, lit. "capital city") was the capital of the Khmer Empire, located in modern-day Cambodia. It was also the rumored location of an Isu temple housing a Piece of Eden, which caused various parties, including the Assassins and Templars, to seek out the lost city in the early 18th century. At that point in time, Angkor's ruins were referred to by the locals as the "Lost City" or the "Land of Those Who Came Before".[1]
History[]
By the early 18th century, Angkor's temple was home to a lotus-shaped disk, a Piece of Eden which was part of a set alongside two other artifacts.[2] In time, rumors of the temple and its treasure spread throughout Southeast Asia, with locals commonly referring to the site as the "Forgotten Temple".[3]
At some point prior to 1725, the Dutch East India Company navigator Hendrik learned about the temple's existence and set out to find it and claim its treasure for himself.[3] While successful in locating Angkor during a company expedition in the jungles of Indochina, Hendrik was unable to retrieve the Piece of Eden and decided to write down clues to its location in his sea log, so that he could return to the ruins at a later date.[4] However, he was killed in Macau in February 1725 before he had the chance to do so.[5]
While trying to follow in Hendrik's footsteps to find Angkor and secure its Piece of Eden to keep it out of the wrong hands, the British Assassin Edward Kenway came into contact with a crescent amulet, an artifact which was part of the same set as Angkor's Piece of Eden. As a result, Edward began to experience visions of the past and the future, one of which showed him the artifact's exact location in Angkor's temple. However, Edward and the members of his Zhang Wei Union decided against retrieving the Piece of Eden immediately, choosing to recover another artifact from the Shwedagon Pagoda first.[2]
Meanwhile, the Chinese Assassins' Mentor Xiao Han and his ally, the businesswoman Lee Huiyin, also learned about Angkor's Piece of Eden after acquiring Hendrik's sea log. After stealing the crescent amulet from Edward, they organized an expedition to Indochina to find Angkor and recover its artifact.[2]
Behind the scenes[]
In Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple, Angkor is referred to several times as the "lost city of the Khmer Kingdom". In reality, Angkor never became a "lost city" (although it did lose its status as the seat of government), and continued to be populated even after the Khmer Empire's collapse in the 15th century. However, the dense jungle made it difficult to find, and few explorers were able to visit the city prior to the late 19th century, when the French government, which ruled Cambodia at the time, began a long restoration process of Angkor.[6]
Etymology[]
Angkor (អង្គរ; ângkôr) is a Khmer name literally meaning "capital city". It is derived from the Khmer word nôkôr (នគរ), meaning "kingdom", which is in turn derived from the Sanskrit nagara (नगर), meaning "city". At the time of its founding, Angkor was known as Yashodharapura, a name derived from Yashoda, the foster-mother of the Hindu god Krishna.[6]
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