Angkor Wat's Lost Bronze Masterpieces: The Khmer Metalworkers

Step into the heat of a lost foundry. This episode of our Angkor Wat series turns away from stone and water to focus on Angkor's bronze-working tradition — a craft that produced colossal statues, intricate ritual vessels, and a nine-metre-tall Vishnu cast in multiple sections and lost to looters in the 20th century. We follow a 1930s French archaeologist to a riverside temple in Koh Ker where the pieces of that giant Vishnu were discovered, then reconstruct how Khmer smiths used the lost-wax method, tin trade routes from the Malay world, and socketed armatures to create hollow-cast bronzes that astonished early visitors. Along the way we meet a living metalworking community in rural Cambodia whose techniques may echo those of the Angkor period, and we look at a fragmentary inscription from Prasat Sikhoraphum that hints at guilds of master casters. No prior episodes required, but if you've listened to our earlier shows on quarrying and labour, this fills in another layer of Angkor's industrial sophistication. #AngkorWat #KhmerBronze #SuryavarmanII #KohKer #LostWaxCasting #Vishnu #CambodianArt #Metallurgy #GeorgeGroslier #PrasatSikhoraphum #AngkorPeriod #SoutheastAsia #KhmerEmpire #BronzeStatuary #ArtHistory #AncientTechnology #History #FexingoHistory Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo