SIEM REAP, Cambodia -- The recent unearthing of hundreds of Buddha statues at a temple in Cambodia's famed Angkor region has forced scholars to reassess theories regarding the final years of the Angkor civilization.
Late last year, a team led by Japanese researchers from the Sophia University Angkor International Mission uncovered some 167 Buddhist statues and other artifacts from the grounds of Banteay Kdei temple, one of 99 UNESCO-protected monuments in the Angkor complex.
Among these was a four-sided sandstone pillar engraved with 1,008 seated Buddhas, a monument similar to that in Nara's Toshodaiji Temple and other Buddhist sites in China and India, but the first of its kind to be exhumed in Cambodia.