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Everyone knows Angkor Wat in Cambodia, a few fortunate explorers also know Ta Prohm, the 12th-century temple nearby in the jungles of Siem Reap that is spectacularly losing a battle against nature.

This situation has led to a sight hardly otherwise seen on Earth. The temple has had its towers crowned by enormous trees, its carved sandstone draped over by branches, its stone galleries cracked open by serpentine roots. No photograph can fully capture the eerie quality of Ta Prohm, even if it is one of the most photographed places in Southeast Asia.

Why Is Ta Prohm The Way It Is?

The Angkor temples were built by the Khmer Empire, one of the most powerful civilisations in Southeast Asian history, between roughly the ninth and 15th centuries. Ta Prohm was constructed in 1186 AD under King Jayavarman VII. It was originally a Buddhist monastery and university housing over 12,000 people including monks, priests, and dancers.

The jungle moved in quickly when the Khmer Empire declined and the capital was eventually abandoned in the 15th century, reclaiming all the Angkor temples to varying degrees. Most were, however, cleared, stabilised, and restored during the 20th century - first by French archaeologists under the École française d'Extrême-Orient, and later by international conservation teams.

Ta Prohm was a deliberate exception. In 2003, when the Archaeological Survey of India started restoration in partnership with the Cambodian government, a conscious decision was made to preserve the temple's entangled, overgrown appearance for three reasons.

• First, for its extraordinary atmospheric and aesthetic quality,
• Second, as an honest record of what eight centuries of abandonment actually looks like, and
• Third, because removing the trees by that point would have caused more destruction than preservation.

The Trees Are Architectural Forces In Ta Prohm

Two species of trees are consuming Ta Prohm: the silk-cotton tree (Ceiba pentandra) and the strangler fig (Ficus gibbosa). More dramatic of the two, the strangler fig begins life in the sky when a bird deposits a seed in a crevice high on a wall or in a crack between stones. The seedling then sends roots probing for soil, snaking downwards along the surface of the masonry. The roots thicken over decades into woody tendrils that wrap the temple structure in an ever-tightening embrace and eventually fuse to form a lattice that might be broader than the original wall itself. The strangler fig grows around the temple, through it, and, in the end, instead of it.

Operating differently but as persistently, the silk-cotton tree anchors itself in accumulated soil at the base of walls or in collapsed galleries. It then sends roots outward in every direction, easily lifting stone blocks, and wedging apart centuries-old masonry.

Cambodia's tropical climate - hot and very wet in the monsoon - is perfect for both species. The area is also rich in humid, decomposing organic matter that collects in every crevice of the ancient ruin.

The Paradox: Destroyer And Protector

The great irony of Ta Prohm is that the trees are simultaneously destroying the temple and holding it together. The roots crack walls apart, but they also bind fallen stones in place, preventing the temple from complete collapse. If you remove a large tree, the masonry it has grown around for a century might simply disintegrate, because the plant is the only structural support it has known for generations. Conservators make difficult case-by-case decisions on whether a tree must stay because its roots are load-bearing, or must go before it splits a lintel that cannot be replaced. This is truly conservation as negotiation - a painstaking dialogue between biological inevitability and human intervention.

What Next For Ta Prohm?

Conservation work is ongoing. Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site as part of the Angkor complex, Ta Prohm is under ongoing conservation work. The archaeologists and structural engineers are constantly working not just to preserve the stones but to manage the relationship between them and the trees. The challenge lies in slowing the rate of biological intrusion without erasing the quality that gives the temple its distinctiveness.

An added urgency comes from climate change. The trees are impacted by longer dry seasons, making them more likely to become unstable or drop branches. Heavy rains accelerate root growth and stone erosion. The precarious balance that has held for centuries is under new pressure.