Missing torso of Buddha statue found at Cambodia's Angkor temple complex

Archaeologists in Cambodia are celebrating an unexpected find at the country’s centuries-old Angkor temple complex: the torso of a statue of Buddha that matches a head found nearly a century ago at the same site.

The torso, believed to be from the 12th or 13th century, stands at 1.16 meters tall and is in the Bayon art style, associated with Angkor’s Bayon temple.

It was found along with 29 fragments that appeared to be part of the same statue, archaeologist Neth Simon said this week. 

“It was a big surprise when we unearthed this sculpture because all we’d found so far were small pieces,” Neth Simon told AP.

She described the statue’s design as displaying carved jewelry and robe and sash, with a unique left-hand gesture across the chest — “an uncommon representation in Khmer (Cambodian) art.” 

The statue’s presumed head was discovered at the same temple in 1927 during the French colonial era, and is currently kept at Cambodia’s main National Museum in the capital Phnom Penh. Neth Simon said the torso was found about 50 meters away from the site where the head was discovered, and that an optical electronic scan confirmed they were a match.

A near-complete reconstruction of the status is possible, Neth Simon added, now that only the right hand of the statue remains missing. Her team will ask the Minister of Culture and Fine Art for approval to reattach the head and body of the sculpture to make it whole for public display.

The Angkor site sprawls across some 400 square kilometers, containing the ruins of capitals of various Cambodian empires from the 9th to the 15th centuries. Scholars consider it to be one of the most important archaeological sites in Southeast Asia. 

The site is Cambodia’s most popular tourist attraction and in 2024 attracted about a million international tourists, according to Cambodia’s Tourism Ministry.