Artifacts in Oddar Meanchey:
There are around 25 provincial museums in Cambodia, where a wealth of Khmer sculptures and artifacts are housed, in addition to the museums in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, which of course, see the majority of foot traffic. The most northern province of Oddar Meanchey, that hugs the Dangrek mountain range and the border with Thailand, does not currently have a museum of its own. They’d like one but at the moment their collection of artifacts, numbering in the hundreds, are stored in a warehouse in the provincial capital of Samraong. Last week, that collection was boosted with a couple of artworks handed in by a farmer in Chong Kal district in the southern region of the province. They were the torso of a Baphuon-era female deity, missing her head, arms and feet, and a ceramic clay pot from the Angkor period. It’s a positive sign that such finds as these, as well as others in recent months, are passed over to the provincial authorities, rather than weaving their way over the border to antiquities dealers in Thailand. I’ve managed to locate a few pictures of other artifacts in the possession of the Culture and Fine Arts team in Samraong, which they hope will form the basis of their museum collection, once it’s up and running. There are no big-hitters in terms of Angkorian temples in the province, though Prasat Ta Muen Thom, straddling the border with Thailand, as is Prasat Ta Krabei, are perhaps the best known.
