Decline and fall of angkor (12th century to 15th century)

Abstract

The study of the factors of the decline of Angkor to date has given us four main causes that triggered the fall: the invasion of the Siamese, the failure of the elaborate hydraulic system which caused the inability to maintain the human resource management, the change of the belief system due to the arrival of Theravada Buddhism, and the approaching of intense maritime trade initiated by the Sung Dynasty. However, there has been little study focusing on the internal cause that allowed those immediate causes to trigger the abandonment of the city, namely the administrative system that had always been the underlying factor in the dynamic of changes in Angkor. This thesis will look at the role of the administrative system in the decline of the Angkorian kingdom (12th-15th Centuries)