The temples of Angkor, built by the Khmer civilization between 802 and 1220 AD, represent one of humankind's most astonishing and enduring architectural achievements. From Angkor the Khmer kings ruled over a vast domain that reached from Vietnam to China to the Bay of Bengal. The structures one sees at Angkor today, more than 100 stone temples in all, are the surviving remains of a grand religious, social and administrative metropolis whose other buildings - palaces, public buildings, and houses - were built of wood and have long since decayed and disappeared. Conventional theories presume the lands where Angkor stands were chosen as a settlement site because of their strategic military position and agricultural potential. Alternative scholars, however, believe the geographical location of the Angkor complex and the arrangement of its temples was based on a planet-spanning sacred geography from archaic times. Using computer simulations, it has been shown that the ground plan of the Angkor complex - the terrestrial placement of its principal temples - mirrors the stars in the constellation of Draco at the time of spring equinox in 10,500 BC. While the date of this astronomical alignment is far earlier than any known construction at Angkor, it appears that its purpose was to architecturally mirror the heavens in order to assist in the harmonization of the earth and the stars. Both the layout of the Angkor temples and the iconographies nature of much its sculpture, particularly the asuras 'demons' and devas 'deities' are also intended to indicate the celestial phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes and the slow transition from one astrological age to another. Angkor's religion in the 9 th to 12 th century was based on Hinduism and by the end of the 12 th century it converted to Buddhism. By mid-13 th century, Angkor's religion converted back to Hinduism.
Once a powerful city-state, Benin exists today as a modern African city in what is now south-central Nigeria. The present-day oba of Benin traces the founding of his dynasty to A.D. 1300. In the late 1400s, a flourishing and wealthy royal court was in place, with a palace harboring a vast compound where metalsmith's, carvers and others created objects for the king and his court. The casting of brass was an art controlled by the king himself; anyone found casting brass without royal permission faced execution. The Edo--the people of Benin--associated brass, which resists corrosion, with the permanence and continuity of kingship. Fundamental to Edo belief, as well, was the veneration of ancestors, whose spirits were thought to protect the living. Cast commemorative heads of deceased kings were displayed on altars at numerous shrines in the royal palace. Benin's religion populates as follows: 23 percent Christianity, 15 percent Islamic, and 61 percent believe in Tribal Beliefs.