Victim of Theft:
One of the most sought-after prize artifacts for thieves that attacked and looted the hoard of statuary held at the Angkor Conservation Depot at the start of the 1970s, were sculptures of Brahma. The Hindu god was the lesser-known of the Trimurti, alongwith Vishnu and Shiva, though held a special place as the creator of the world. Significantly, he is always depicted with four heads and this was the bonanza that saw at least four Brahma statues lose their heads from the Conservation depot, located next to the Siem Reap river, during the civil war and Khmer Rouge period. The missing four were included in the 1997 second-edition book, One Hundred Missing Objects: Looting in Angkor, which was published to highlight the looted treasures to museums and galleries around the globe. This particular example, was photographed by the EFEO team in late 1968, though there is no record of its arrival date at the compound or from which temple it was rescued from. It had already lost its front face and its four arms and lower legs and feet before it became another victim of looting. The head had been already been reattached to the body but was to lose it again, a couple of years later. The cylindrical chignon was shared by the original four faces, secured with a pearl band and each with a diadem depicting lozenges and leaves, with elongated ears. The faces look unfinished or perhaps worn away over time, with the knee-length sampot offering a double-anchor front pleat falling from a smooth belt, and a likely sculpting date at the beginning of the eleventh century in the Khleang art style. As a complete statue, the four arms would’ve held the attributes of a scepter or spoon, rosary beads, book/scripture and a water jug. In a seated position, he would’ve sat on a lotus or on his mount, a Hamsa bird, likely next to a statue of his wife, Sarasvati, though he is often shown on narrative lintels as emerging from a reclining Vishnu’s navel. The number of surviving Brahma statues is considerably less than those of his fellow gods, Vishnu and Shiva.Credit By :Andy Brouwer