Archaeologists Stumble Upon 900-Year-Old Door Guardian Statues in Cambodia

During a recent excavation, a team of archaeologists searching the structure of Angkor Thom’s iconic Royal Palace in Cambodia for fallen stones discovered something far more valuable: 12 sandstone “door guardian” statues. Cambodia’s APSARA National Authority, the government agency that manages the Angkor Archaeological Park, announced the findings in a recent statement.

“Experts believe these door guardian statues exemplify the Khneang Style, aligning with the construction period of the 11th-century palace,” Chhay Phanny, spokesperson to APSARA National Authority, writes in the statement translated into English.

Angkor Thom was one of the largest cities in the pre-modern world and the last capital of the Khmer Empire, a Hindu-Buddhist power that ruled in Southeast Asia from around 802 to 1431 C.E. and at its peak controlled much of modern-day Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and southern Vietnam. Now within Cambodia’s Angkor Archaeological Park, the location is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most important archaeological and tourist areas of Southeast Asia.

The 900-year-old statues display unique facial hair ornaments and vary in size and shape, with some measuring 39 inches and others reaching 43 inches, reports Sopheng Cheang of the Associated Press. They were found at a depth of up to 4.5 feet, and while some seem well-preserved, others are cracked or ruined. Photographs of the statues show figures standing in front of a decorated tear-drop-shaped background, per Miami Herald’s Aspen Pflughoeft, and some of them hold what look like staffs in their right hands.

Archaeologists continue to make remarkable discoveries at Angkor Thom. In August of this year, another sandstone door guardian statue was found at Banteay Prei Temple, a Buddhist temple also within Angkor Archaeological Park.

“Due to the size and topography of Angkor Archaeological Park, researchers continue to unearth artifacts and structures that shed light on the Khmer civilization,” Richard Whiddington reported for Artnet about the earlier discovery.

Recent decades have seen the repatriation of Khmer artifacts from abroad, some of which were looted in the 1970s during the period of violence and instability under the communist Khmer Rouge regime, per the Associated Press. Cambodia’s attempt to clean up the Angkor Archaeological Park, however, recently came under international scrutiny, reports Newsweek’s Shannon McDonagh, when the government forcefully relocated over 10,000 families away from the site in 2022.

Margherita Bassi | READ MORE

Margherita Bassi is a freelance journalist and trilingual storyteller. Her work has appeared in publications including BBC Travel, Discover magazine, Live Science, Atlas Obscura and Hidden Compass.