<P> Mouhot did, however, popularise Angkor in the West . Perhaps none of the previous European visitors wrote as evocatively as Mouhot, who included interesting and detailed sketches . In his posthumously published "Travels in Siam, Cambodia and Laos," Mouhot compared Angkor to the pyramids, for it was popular in the West at that time to ascribe the origin of all civilization to the Middle East . For example, he described the Buddha heads at the gateways to Angkor Thom as "four immense heads in the Egyptian style" and wrote of Angkor: </P> <P> "One of these temples--a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michael Angelo--might take an honourable place beside our most beautiful buildings . It is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome, and presents a sad contrast to the state of barbarism in which the nation is now plunged ." </P> <P> Mouhot also wrote that: </P> <P> "At Ongcor, there are...ruins of such grandeur...that, at the first view, one is filled with profound admiration, and cannot but ask what has become of this powerful race, so civilized, so enlightened, the authors of these gigantic works?" </P>

When was angkor wat discovered and by whom