Cryptozoological riddles can turn up in the most unlikely places, but few can be as unexpected as Cambodia’s perplexing dinosaur carving. One of this country’s most beautiful monuments is the jungle temple of Ta Prohm, created around 800 years ago. Like others from this time, it is intricately adorned with images from Buddhist and Hindu mythology, but it also has one truly exceptional glyph unique to the site. Near the temple’s exit can be found a circular glyph containing the carving of a burly, small-headed, quadrupedal beast bearing a row of diamond-shaped plates along its back – an image irresistibly reminiscent of a stegosaurian dinosaur!

This anachronistic animal carving is reputedly popular with local guides, who delight in baffling western tourists by asking them if they believe dinosaurs still existed 800 years ago and then showing this glyph to them. Could it therefore be a modern fake, skilfully carved amid the genuine glyphs by a trickster hoping to fool unsuspecting tourists? Or is it a bona fide 800-year-old artifact just like the others? If so, perhaps it was inspired by the temple’s architects having seen some fossilised dinosaur remains? After all, it surely couldn’t have been based upon a sighting of a real-life stegosaur… could it?

www.unexplainedearth.com/angkor.php accessed 23 April 2006.