Happy Summer Solstice (June 21)

• Summer Solstice: longest day and shortest night of year

Angkor Wat: equinoxes and solstices were encoded into the ancient architecture

The marvels of ancient Angkor

The best place to be this morning is in the former Khmer Empire, modern Cambodia, in the center of one of the largest ancient cities in the world at the Buddhist-Hindu temple at the center of it, Angkor Wat. (Wat means monastery complex or vihara).

• Almost 9,000 tourists see equinox sunrise at Angkor Wat – ASEAN Digest

The second-best place to be is in the middle of New York City at the holy site of "Manhattanhenge" where signs of intelligent life must have built a megastructure aligned with the astronomical objects in the visible sky, possibly with extraterrestrial assistance.

Here Comes the Sun (The Beatles)

Some say massive structures like the "Empire State" Building were in fact pre-Mud Flood architectural feats being taken credit for by modern builders with widely circulated photos of men eating lunch in precarious worksites as if that were all the proof needed.

LONDON, England — As the sun rose Saturday on the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, a crowd erupted in cheers at Stonehenge where the ancient monument in southern England has clocked the summer solstice over thousands of years.

• Summer solstice arrives, marking longest day of year
• What is 'Manhattanhenge' and when can you see it?

Best Angkor Wat, Cambodia, sunrise and sunset viewpoints (pinterest.com)

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Sun also rises, not earth moving

The orange ball crested the northeast horizon behind the Heel Stone, the entrance to the stone circle, and shone its beam of light into the center of one of the world’s most famous prehistoric monuments.

The solstice is one of the few occasions each year when visitors are allowed to walk among the stones, which are otherwise fenced off.

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  What did the ancients know and practice?

  The miracle of Newgrange, Ireland, eclipses Stonehenge (like Adam's Calendar, Africa)...so that's why we've never heard of it. Newgrange (Irish Sí an Bhrú [1]) is a prehistoric monument in County Meath, Ireland, placed on a rise overlooking the River Boyne, five miles (8 km) west of the town of Drogheda [2]. It is an exceptionally grand passage tomb built during the Neolithic Period, around 3100 BC [3], making it older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids. Newgrange is the main monument in the Brú na Bóinne complex, a World Heritage Site that also includes the passage tombs of Knowth and Dowth, as well as other henges, burial mounds [which are a kind of stupa], and standing stones [3]. Newgrange consists of a large circular mound with an inner stone passageway and cruciform chamber More

The crowd gathered before dawn at the World Heritage Site to mark the start of summer in the Northern Hemisphere, beating the heat during the U.K.'s first amber heat-health alert issued since September 2023.

Temperatures later topped 91.4 degrees Fahrenheit (33 degrees Celsius) in Surrey, 80 miles (128 kilometers) east of Stonehenge, the hottest temperature recorded in the U.K. so far this year.

About 25,000 sun devotees (sun cult worshippers) and other revelers -- including Druids, pagans, hippies, locals, and tourists -- showed up, according to English Heritage which operates the site.

More than 400,000 others around the world watched a livestream. “This morning was a joyous and peaceful occasion with the most beautiful sunrise," said Richard Dewdney, head of operations at Stonehenge. “It is fantastic to see Stonehenge continuing to enchant and connect people.”

Stonehenge was built [and constantly re-adjusted] in stages 5,000 years ago on the flat lands of Salisbury Plain approximately 75 miles (120 kilometers) southwest of London.

The Sky People built mound-pyramids to the sun

[A few decades ago modern cranes and equipment were used to set up a pile of fallen stones, aligning them to their current positions; those photos were then forgotten, though they still exist, and everyone assumes ancient Druids built what is seen today 5,000 years ago before modern explorers stumbled onto the site. The walk from the carpark to the erected stones used to be lined with sandwich boards explaining the artificial evolution of the site with many adjustments over time, not one permanent setup millennia earlier.]

The unique stone circle was erected in the late Neolithic period about 2,500 B.C. Sunrise at Stonehenge draws druids, pagans and revelers to celebrate the summer solstice

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Angkor Wat on the equinox 2024

As thousands gather to see the spectacle, many having planned on adding the leg to their Thailand itinerary, it's hard to imagine every massive Buddhist temple and monolith doesn't get the same adoration and treatment. The builders obviously knew all about celestial events and alignments. This footage is from earlier in the year, and today is no exception as fall equinox dawns on the planet.

Cambodia Trip 4K: Amazing Equinox sunrise on the top of Angkor Wat Temple 2024

(The Walk Street) March 21, 2024: This is amazing equinox sunrise on the top of Angkor Wat Temple with about 10,000 tourists watching this amazing place aligned to the equinoxes and solstices in Siem Reap Province, Cambodia.

City of the God-Kings: Buddhist Angkor Wat

Timeline World History Docs, 7/15/17; Pat Macpherson, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The City of the God Kings: Angkor Wat

The God (Deva) Kings (Rajas) of Angkor

Lost Worlds investigates the very latest archeological finds at three remote and hugely significant sites: Cambodian Buddhist-Hindu Angkor Wat, Greek-Trojan Troy, and Iranian-Persian Persepolis.

Lost Worlds travels to each site and, using top notch computer graphics, creates lavish reenactments, displaying the latest archeological evidence and bringing them to stunning visual life.

1. From the 900-year-old remains of Angkor Wat in the Cambodian jungle, the staggering "City of the God Kings" (deva-rajas) is recreated.
2. From Project Troia in Northwest Turkey, the location of the biggest archeological expedition ever mounted, the Lost City is stunningly visualized.
3. And finally from the City of Persepolis, the great Persian Empire is brought to life.

Three months of History Hit access for US$ 3 using code "timeline" (http://bit.ly/TimelineSubscribe). Content licensed from Digital Rights Group (DRG). Produced by Darlow Smithson Productions. From the original documentary, Angkor Wat, City of the God Kings. For any enquiries, please contact: owned-enquiries@littledotstudios.com.

Khmer convictions: Cambodia, Angelina Jolie

Pfc. Sandoval, Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Pat Macpherson, Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; BBC

It is believed that up to 2 million Cambodians died under CIA/Pol Pot's regime (AFP/BBC)

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Cambodian Tomb Raider Angelina Jolie (Lara Croft)

Most Americans are not likely aware that anything much ever happened in Cambodia -- Cambodia? Where's Cambodia? -- even as our government illegally bombed it during our war on Vietnam and our CIA fomented mass murder and crimes against humanity by cultivating dictators. 

 

It does the same now in the geopolitical Middle East just as it did all over Latin America. The CIA's activities there were exposed first hand by the highest ranking officer to ever blow the whistle:
 

Philip Agee, author of Inside the Company: CIA Diary. This seems to be in keeping with the way-of-empire and our American imperial method of making war as we learned it from England, Germany (WW II era Nazis, who came to live and work for the U.S. shadow government), Spain, France, Rome, Greece... It seems to be the Western way.

 

But Americans might know the name Pol Pot from the late 1970s, and we have all certainly heard the expression "killing fields." After all, the world's most famous Cambodian citizen is superstar actor Angelina Jolie. And America's amazing "Buddha Girl" Ratanayani is a Cambodian-American!
 

The Buddha at Battambang, Cambodia (Kim Seng/captainkino.com/flickr.com)

 

Reptilians/Nagas

Cambodia was once a peaceful Theravada Buddhist country in Southeast Asia.
 
But long before that -- mirroring the Mesoamerican empires of ancient Mexico (Aztec, Toltec, and Olmec) -- it was one of the world's greatest empires extending in the jungles from the center of the world at Angkor Wat and its suburbs, which were once home to 1,000,000 residents. It covers more ground than Paris and was built with more stone than the pyramids of Egypt, according to National Geographic.

The greatness is evident because Cambodia's former glory was not limited to the City of Angkor with its central wat (Buddhist temple). Other great stone cities have also been discovered and made much of by National Geographic, but other equally great ruins remain yet to be discovered.
 

Glass pool reservoir at Angkor Wat, Cambodia (Platongkohphoto/flickr.com)

 

But their innovative water system collapsed and their apparent worship of nagas (reptilians, snakes, Quetzalcoatl-like off-planet overlords) ushered in their ruin as a "Rome," "Washington," or "Vatican" -- the capitals of other massive empires.
 
"The Killing Fields," winner of three Academy Awards, tells the story of a New York Times reporter and his Cambodian aide harrowingly trapped in Cambodia's 1975 Khmer Rouge revolution. Sam Waterston, John Malkovich, and "Best Supporting Actor" (Oscar and Golden Globe winner) Haing S. Ngor star in this shattering true story. Rated: R.

 

Jolie's Cambodian shaman/Buddhist tattoos

Americans would have heard of the expression "The Killing Fields" from the popular film, and Pol Pot from the chorus of the Dead Kennedy's ironic and popular punk classic "Holiday in Cambodia," its stone building sunk in jungle thickets from Angelina Jolie as actress (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider) and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador.

WARNING: Graphic and gruesome violence! (CNN.com, May 1, 2009) CNN's Dan Rivers profiles members of the Khmer Rouge, as they face justice before a U.N.-backed trial.

Top Khmer Rouge leaders convicted: found guilty of crimes against humanity

Ancient megalithic Angkor Wat and its Buddha and kings' faces (Dvillaret/flickr.com)

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(BBC) There was a round of applause as the verdict was reached, according to BBC correspondent Jonathan Head.

Two top Khmer Rouge leaders have been jailed for life after being convicted by Cambodia's UN-backed tribunal of crimes against humanity

 

Nuon Chea, 88, served as leader Pol Pot's deputy and Khieu Samphan, 83, was the Maoist regime's head of state. They are the first top-level leaders to be held accountable for its crimes.
 

Soum Rithy, who lost his father and three siblings, reacts to verdict in Phom Penh (Reuters)

 
Up to two million people are thought to have died under the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime -- of starvation and overwork or executed as enemies of the state.

 

Judge Nil Nonn said the men were guilty of "extermination encompassing murder, political persecution, and other inhumane acts comprising forced transfer, enforced disappearances, and attacks against human dignity."

 

Lawyers for the pair said they would appeal against the ruling. "It is unjust for my client. He did not know or commit many of these crimes," Son Arun, a lawyer for Nuon Chea, told journalists. They will remain in detention while this takes place. 
 
"Anger remains"

The regime sought to create an agrarian society: cities were emptied and their residents forced to work on rural co-operatives. Many were worked to death while others starved as the economy imploded. 

 

During four violent years, the Khmer Rouge also killed all those it perceived as enemies -- intellectuals, minorities, former officials -- and their families. More

"Holiday in Cambodia"
(DKs555) "Apocalypse Now" illegally in Cambodia, where the US/CIA had no right or justification to be. Yet, it dropped more cluster bombs and committed as many if not more secret war crimes in Cambodia and Laos than it did in Vietnam.

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Rights group urges Vietnam to free Buddhist monk

Buddhist monks, seen here in August 2007, pray in Phnom Penh to demand the release of fellow monk Tim Sakhorn

HANOI (AFP, July 3, 2008) — Human Rights Watch called on communist Vietnam Thursday to lift any restrictions on the liberty of an activist Buddhist monk who disappeared on the day he was released from prison last week.

Tim Sakhorn, an activist for the Khmer Krom ethnic Cambodian minority of southern Vietnam, was freed Saturday, but his whereabouts were unknown since he was last seen together with government officials, the rights group said.

"While his release from prison is welcome, as a peaceful activist and human rights defender, Tim Sakhorn should never have been imprisoned in the first place," said Brad Adams, Asia director of the New York-based group. The rights group said it feared Sakhorn may be under house arrest and police surveillance, like other dissident monks in Vietnam.

Vietnam-born Sakhorn, 40, had lived in Cambodia since 1978, when his family fled border fighting between Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese forces, and became a Cambodian citizen and, 17 years ago, a Buddhist monk. He had sheltered Khmer Krom asylum seekers from Vietnam at his pagoda and was a member for the US-based Khmers Kampuchea Krom Federation, which campaigns for the minority's religious freedoms and land rights.

In February 2007, Buddhist monks and farmers in Cambodia noisily protested against a visit by Vietnam's President Nguyen Minh Triet, claiming Hanoi was repressing ethnic Cambodians in southern Mekong delta areas. The region, home to about 10 million ethnic Cambodians, was made part of Vietnam during the French colonial reign but remains a source of tension between Hanoi and Khmer nationalists who want it returned to Cambodia.

On June 30 last year Cambodian authorities defrocked Sakhorn for "harming the solidarity" between Cambodia and Vietnam and arrested and deported him. Vietnam jailed him in November for "undermining national unity." Sakhorn was released on June 28 and, dressed in civilian clothes, escorted to his An Giang province birthplace, where officials reportedly offered him land and a house as an incentive to remain in Vietnam, HRW said.

However, hours later, according to villagers, government officials escorted Sakhorn away, reportedly to Ho Chi Minh City, said the group. "He should be able to travel freely and to meet his friends and family members in private," Adams said. "And the Cambodian government should publicly confirm that he is free to return to Cambodia, where he is a citizen."

Anti-Vietnamese sentiment remains strong in Cambodia, fuelled by resentment over Vietnam's past territorial expansions and Vietnam's 1978 invasion that ousted Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime and started a decade-long occupation.