SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA—According to a report in The Cambodia Daily, archaeologists from the Apsara Authority discovered a sandstone statue of a guard near the northern entrance of the walled city of Angkor Thom. The statue is now missing its feet and parts of its legs, but is thought to have stood more than six feet tall on the grounds of a hospital built by King Jayavarman VII during the twelfth century. “The hospital consisted of wooden buildings and a chapel erected in stones,” said Tan Boun Suy, deputy director-general of the Apsara Authority. “What is left is the chapel…as wooden structures have long disappeared.” The team has also recovered a piece of another statue as well as roof tiles and ceramics. Rethy Chhem of the Cambodia Development Resource Institute added that Jayavarman VII placed hospitals at each of the four cardinal points of Angkor Thom. Each of those hospitals was equipped with two Buddhist shrines. For more, go to “Angkor Urban Sprawl.”
