The four cavernous wings of Cambodia’s national museum are so packed with objects that visitors need to watch their elbows while strolling among the roughly 1,400 on display.
The century-old building in central Phnom Penh is running out of room partly because foreign collectors and institutions have returned about 300 stolen artifacts over the past six years. On a recent afternoon, returned statues the size of refrigerators were sheltering under the courtyard’s blood-red roof eaves in their foam packaging.
“Space,” the director, Chhay Visoth, said during an interview in the courtyard when asked what tops his long wish list.
An expansion and a renovation are planned, but it’s unclear who would pay for upgrades, how the money would be managed, or how the museum plans to handle its internal politics.
There is also the challenge of designing galleries for Cambodian visitors who see its statues not as artwork, but as divinities holding the souls of their ancestors. For them, the museum is more of a temple.
“They come to see the gods, or to be seen by the gods,” said Huot Samnang, the director of Cambodia’s antiquities department.
