Borobudur - a brief history

In 775AD, a group of people called the Sanjayas began building a step pyramid. In 790AD, another group of people, the Buddhist Saliendras, took over the Sanjayas and drive them away.

The Saliendras used the pyramid to build their own temple. They carved in the relief sculptures and used over 1.6 million lava rocks to finish it. 100 years later, however, the foundaton proved to be weak and there was lots of water damage. They abandoned the area and that temple remained untouched for the next 1000 years.

Then the English discovered it in the 1815 admist a vast jungle ... Just stumbled upon it. They didn't do much, but in the 1970s, UNESCO, the organization that deals with the world heritage sites, began to reconstruct the old temple. They cleared the surrounding jungle and took apart the temple stone by stone to replace the foundation with concrete. 11 years and $21 million later, we have the present-day Borobudur.