Bayon - the most singular of all Angkor monuments. It was Jayavarman’s last work begun in about 1190, and it marked the height of the Khmer power and foreshadowed its end. From its towers sixty-four colossal faces of the king, now represented as one with the Buddha, smiled, rather enigmatically, towards the four quarters of the kingdom. Many French colonizers found these to be very sinister.
The dense jungle surrounding the temple camouflaged its position in relation to other structures at Angkor so it was not known for some time that the Bayon stands in the exact centre of the city of Angkor Thom.