An inscribed Sanskrit stele at Siem Reap

This inscribed Sanskrit stele is on display in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Most Southeast Asian scripts that predated the arrival of Europeans were based on Sanskrit, generally recognizable from its curling characters.Such stone monuments in both Sanskrit and Old Khmer (written with a Sanskritic script) have been major sources of information about the classical Khmer kingdom of Angkor and about daily life within the royal city walls. Inscribed stone monuments describing the Angkor empire have been discovered as far away as Laos.