evidence: Preah Vihear is a series of buildings arrayed along a 2,600-foot-long central causeway that proceeds dramatically to the edge of a cliff. The complex is meant to represent Mount Meru, the home of Shiva and other Hindu gods. According to Sanskrit inscriptions at Preah Vihear, the temple’s formal origins date to Jayavarman II’s son, Prince Indrayudha, who, in A.D. 893 installed a fragment from a stone monument called a lingam at the site. The lingam, which represents the male sex organ, served two purposes. It was a powerful holy symbol of Shiva, and it was intended to mark Preah Vihear as the northern extent of the Khmer Empire at that time. [...] The modern-day conflict over Preah Vihear has it roots in the early twentieth century. A treaty between the governments of France and the kingdom of Siam signed in 1904 redrew the border dividing what is now Thailand and Cambodia. French surveyors sketched a line that was supposed to follow the watershed boundary, a line that separates the river basins between the two countries. Near Preah Vihear, the border follows the edge of a cliff but diverges from the cliff near the temple complex so that it is included in Cambodian territory.