13/02/2026
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Credit by We Love Ancient Aliens
The Koh Ker pyramid, also known as Prasat Thom, is a massive seven-tiered stepped pyramid located at the heart of the ancient Khmer capital of Koh Ker in northern Cambodia.
Constructed in the early 10th century CE during the reign of King Jayavarman IV, it served as a state temple and the symbolic centre of the city.
Rising to approximately 36 m (118 ft), the pyramid is built primarily of sandstone, laterite, and earth, with steep stairways aligned to the cardinal directions.
Unlike the later temples of Angkor, Koh Ker follows a more austere, monumental style, emphasising scale and geometry over dense surface decoration.
At its summit once stood a colossal linga, representing Shiva, indicating the temple’s role as a powerful Shaivite sanctuary and a cosmic axis linking earth and the divine.
The pyramid’s orientation differs slightly from Angkor’s east-west norm, reflecting Koh Ker’s brief but independent political and religious identity.
Surrounded by forests and quarries that supplied its stone, the Koh Ker pyramid remains one of the most striking and unconventional expressions of Khmer architecture, highlighting a short but bold experimental phase in the empire’s monumental construction...
