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The Stolen God: Angkor Wat's Vishnu and the Pillage of Cambodia
Description
In this episode of The Khmer Empire's Sudden Collapse Explained, Lucas and Luna follow the trail of a single statue—an 8th-century bronze Vishnu stolen from Angkor Wat in the 1990s—to uncover the story of temple looting, the illicit antiquities trade, and its devastating impact on Cambodian cultural heritage. They discuss how French colonial archaeologists like Henri Mouhot and Étienne Aymonier first documented the temples, the chaos of the Khmer Rouge era that opened the door for systematic looting, and the ongoing efforts by the Cambodian government and organizations like UNESCO to recover stolen artifacts. Along the way, they touch on the role of the art market, museums like the Metropolitan and the Norton Simon, and the legal battles that have repatriated a handful of objects while thousands remain missing. The episode raises hard questions about who owns history and what it means to rebuild a nation's soul after genocide.