Workers gently take apart a packing crate to reveal a 10th century Pandava Sahadeva sculpture carved from sandstone, far from its home around Angkor Wat in the jungles of Cambodia.
The 1,033-kilogram carving and 700-kilogram base need soft straps and a gentle hand on the controls of a hydraulic lifter to be manoeuvred into the display area at the Royal British Columbia Museum.
Immediately, two Cambodian government officials start examining the sculpture with light bars and 3D scanners, comparing images from the last crating to ensure there are no cracks or damage.
The Pandava Sahadeva, part of the Hindu heritage of the Angkor civilization, and 120 other priceless artifacts from ancient Cambodia’s vast temple complexes are on a road trip for the first time, stopping in Los Angeles, Utah and now Victoria for a show that opens Friday and continues into the fall.
Angkor: The Lost Empire of Cambodia is the first international exhibit at the RBCM since 2019 when Maya: The Jaguar Rises filled a third of the second floor.
The Cambodia collections arrived in seven, temperature-controlled tractor-trailer units last week, travelling in a convoy, and loaded with an elaborate museum display of six sections, each with interactive models and mapping features. The whole exhibit covers about 10,000 square feet.
“These are our national treasures and we are happy we can show them to the country of Canada for the first time,” said Soda Sok, a Cambodian stone carver and government representative supervising Monday’s unpacking.
Sok said like many other countries, Cambodia is trying to repatriate artifacts that have been looted over the centuries and sold at auction to private collectors and museums.
In 2013, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York returned two statues of the Pandava brothers from the Prasat Chen ensemble that have been in its collection since the early 1990s.
Another of the nine statues that made up the original statue group was found to be up for auction just recently and returned to Cambodia, reuniting the group, at least temporarily.
The Pandava uncrated Monday was an original from the Angkor area on loan from the National Museum in Phnom Penh.
“It’s important that our country can have these returned to us because they belong [in Cambodia],” said Sok.
The shipping of the artifacts is a tightly controlled process with strict timelines and security. Even the shipping-crate wood has to be carefully inspected and approved. All shipping materials have to be “inert” or free from chemicals, and temperature and humidity is constantly monitored.
Some of the items on display are being shown for the first time outside Cambodia. Only three of the 120 pieces are replicas, because of their sheer size and weight.
Angkor was once a vast metropolis and the centre of one of the world’s greatest empires. It spanned 400 square kilometres and was built between the seventh and 15th centuries, when Khmer kings established their power by building grand temples with cities around them and creating a sacred place on Earth for Hindu and Buddhist faiths.
At its height, the capital city of the Khmer empire contained about a million people. Considered the largest city in the world, it used more stone than all of the Egyptian pyramids combined.
Angkor Wat, the largest temple, is considered the world’s largest religious structure, covering 160 hectares.
The enormous monuments to the gods, like at Angkor Wat, and the vast system of water reservoirs and canals that supported farming and fishing are considered among the most remarkable achievements in human history. The temples towered over sprawling cities made of wood that have long since vanished.
Johan Schelfhout, a communications manager working with Austria-based MuseumsPartner, which designed the exhibit, said the Angkor empire and cultural resilience of the Khmer people who built it and still worship there have fascinated scientists for decades.
He said it’s only recently that researchers are grasping the scope of Angkor by using advances in science and technology for ground excavations, aerial mapping and remote sensing.
Jana Stefan, exhibits technician for the RBCM, said the Angkor show was several years in the making.
“To get the historic side of it with all the new science in the same space is incredible,” Stefan said during Monday’s setup. “It’s exciting. I remember a lot of it from when I was 18 and studying art history at UVic, and I can see some of those pieces first hand.”
The exhibit takes visitors on a self-guided tour with interactive displays for children and adults as well as films, audio clips and models.
It starts with early archaeologists examining the artifacts and inscriptions to understand the history and how different religions co-existed peacefully for centuries in the Khmer empire at Angkor. There is extensive statuary of the gods worshipped, original rubbings of ancient texts, as well as drawings, travelogues and pictures from the first Western explorers.
Technology is now showing the refinement of the Angkor temples’ architecture, and how early urban planners made incredible straight lines over many kilometres to align temples with waterways.
Ancient Angkor was home to a large and complex society. The economy supported a specialized priesthood and a ruling class and the construction of highly decorated temples overseen by specialized craftsmen and early forgers of iron and bronze.
The entire Angkor area was based on water management on a grand scale through wet and dry seasons and intensive rice cultivation. In addition to fishing, the Khmer grew vegetables and raised pigs and poultry. Commerce and trade supported the growth of the empire, including early trade with China.
The Angkor empire eventually declined due to political and religious conflicts and a landscape that could no longer support large populations. But the temple complexes remain in use to this day, and millions of tourists flock to visit the UNESCO World Heritage site.
dkloster@timescolonist.com
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