Angkor Thom (Big Angkor) is a 3km square royal city. It was the last capital of the Angkorian empire. After Jayavarman VII defeated the Cham invaders in 1181, he built Angkor Thom as his new capital city. He began with existing structures such as Baphuon and Phimeanakas and built a grand enclosed city around them, adding the outer wall/moat. He then constructed some of Angkor’s greatest temples including his state-temple, Bayon, set at the center of the city. There are five gates into the city, each gate is crowned with 4 giant faces. The pyramid mountain of the Bayon is a fascinating place to explore with steep stairways, low corridors and numerous gothic towers decorated with coldly smiling faces of Avalokiteshvara, the Buddhist God of universal compassion (his face resembles King Jayavarman VII). The Bayon is decorated with galleries of bas-reliefs showing daily life and scenes of wars against the Chams and mythological scenes. The Baphuon would have been a most spectacular temple. It was the centre of restoration efforts, with the temple taken apart when the Cambodian civil war erupted, all the records were destroyed, leaving experts with a giant jigsaw puzzle. The restoration programme resumed in 1995 and was continuing when we visited in 2007. The Royal Palace was laid out by the earlier King Suryavaman I, most buildings, including the royal palace, were built of wood, and have vanished. The Phimeanakas, a small pyramid temple in the Royal Palace, is the oldest known building in Angkor Thom. The Terrace of the Elephants, in front of the Royal Enclosure was used for royal reviews of military and other parades. The terrace is decorated with almost life-size images of sandstone elephants in a procession. The north part of the wall contains a number of especially fine sculptures which include a five headed horse, and dancers and warriors. The Terrace of the Leper King is thought to have been the place for royal cremations. The walls of the terrace are decorated with carvings of seated apsara, kings with double edged swords accompanied by the court and princesses, and carvings of the underworld with naga, demons, anti-gods. The statue on top of the terrace depicts the Hindu god Yama, the god of Death. He was called the Leper King because discoloration and moss growing on the original statue was reminiscent of a person with leprosy - it also it fits in with a Cambodian legend of an Angkorian king who had leprosy. Prasat Suor Prat is a series of twelve towers lining the eastern side of royal square in Angkor Thom. The name means "The towers of the tight-rope dancers", derived from local belief that they were used to support a rope stretched between the towers for acrobats during royal festivals. The towers were probably used to settle disputes among local people.