Prasat Ak Yum

On the south bank of the West Baray, about 1.5 km east of its south-west corner. Use the coordinates on this page.

A brick temple on the south bank of the West Baray, about 1.5 km from its south-west corner. The APSARA sign dates it to the 7th century, before the founding of Angkor; other sources place the first sanctuary in the 8th.

It began as a single brick sanctuary and was later enlarged into a stepped pyramid of three levels on a base about 100 m square, with towers at the corners. It is often called one of the earliest temple mountains in the region, the form later built on a far greater scale at Bakong, Pre Rup and Angkor Wat.

When the West Baray was dug in the 11th century, its southern dike was built straight over the temple and buried much of it. What can be seen today sits low in a hollow cut into the bank.

Georges Trouvé excavated it in 1932. A shaft from the top of the pyramid led about 12 m down to a small chamber, where a standing male statue and gold leaf worked with elephants were found. An inscription from 1001 records gifts to the god Gambhiresvara, so the shrine was still in use then.

Prasat Phnom Roung, also dated to the 7th century, lies just beyond the north-west corner of the same baray.