Several pieces of flattened gold bands found at an ancient tomb dug in a rice field in Prey Veng Province. As tomb raiders plunder Iron Age treasures, archaeologists warn that Cambodia's rich pre-Angkorian heritage will be completely lost within three years.(AFP/Tang Chhin Sothy)
Cambodians dig the site of an ancient tomb in a rice field at the Domrey Poun commune in Prey Veng Province. As tomb raiders plunder Iron Age treasures -- beads, gold ornaments and even the bones from burial mounds -- archaeologists warn that Cambodia's rich pre-Angkorian heritage will be completely lost within three years.(AFP/Tang Chhin Sothy)Cambodia's tomb raiders threaten Iron Age heritage
PREY ROUNG, Cambodia (AFP) - A heavy swing of Cheak Soeun's hoe cleaves through a ceramic urn and the farmer bends over to toss the shards from his pit with a disappointed grunt.
But he sees something in the earth at his feet and bends over for a closer look, handing up a sliver of human tooth that he quickly determines to also be worthless and throws away with the broken pottery at the edge of his hole.
This scene will repeat itself hundreds of times over during a single day in these rice fields in southeastern Cambodia where thousands swarm to burrow as far into the earth as they can to scavenge anything that might be saleable, in the process turning hectares of land into a deeply-pitted moonscape.
As tomb raiders plunder Iron Age treasures -- beads, gold ornaments and even the bones from burial mounds -- archaeologists warn that Cambodia's rich pre-Angkorian heritage will be completely lost within three years.
Hundreds, if not more of the 4,000 or so documented sites across the country have already been torn apart, most often by desperately poor farmers urged on middlemen who sell the artifacts at huge markups in Cambodia's cities or on the black market abroad.
"The scale of the looting in Cambodia is breathtaking," says Dougald O'Reilly, director of the independent group Heritage Watch which has been working to protect Cambodia's cultural riches.
"Iron Age sites are being destroyed at an unprecedented rate. In two or three years there will be no sites left," he says.
Cambodia's Iron Age, which lasted from roughly 500 BC to 500 AD, holds the key to understanding the great Angkorian empire, which emerged as a powerful regional force beginning in the 9th century and built the stunning Angkor temple complex in northwestern Cambodia that remains the country's greatest drawcard.
"We're losing all of the information on how Angkor came to be, why Cambodia was one of the most powerful states in Southeast Asia," O'Reilly says.
"This is incredibly important information, for science and Cambodia itself -- the country is losing its identity."
In the pits in Cambodia's southeast, a whoop goes up and dozens of the 100 or so people working over the earth drop their tools and crowd around the lucky hole.
Two urns have been found relatively intact -- but only for a few minutes before they are smashed apart and the debris sifted through for anything more appealing.
Standing at the edge of the hole, 31-year-old Meth Ry carefully unfolds a piece of cloth to reveal several pieces of flattened gold banding that he found in a tomb two days earlier.
In the month that he has been digging here, he has also discovered two skulls, which he says he keeps at his nearby house because "I heard some people like to buy bones".
"I don't know anything about the concerns that we are destroying historic sites. We are poor and we have no food, so we come here to dig and make money to buy rice," he explains.
Around a month ago local newspapers reported that a woman had found gold weights worth 180 US dollars in these dry paddy fields in Prey Veng province, some 90 kilometres (55 miles) east of Phnom Penh, which is believed to have been the site of the ancient city of Tuol Vihear Bitmeas.
Villagers from hundreds of kilometers away flocked to the site, and as the frenzy of scavenging took hold, Meth Ry was one of the first to buy a one-square-meter piece of field from a farmer for about 2.50 dollars and begin digging.
Since then he says he has made about 50 dollars selling beads and other items found in the ground to middlemen who stand at the edges of the field in the evenings and trade money for the daily findings.
Police early in April tried to chase off the treasure hunters, but many still return and pick over the land, driven by the continued demand for artifacts, much of it from collectors in neighbouring countries.
Chuch Phoeurng of Cambodia's Ministry of Culture blames these traders for encouraging villagers to dig up historic sites across the country.
"We need to take action -- the authorities need to arrest these people. We have a law against looting, yet the digging continues because of these traders," he says.
Thriving artifact markets in countries neighbouring Cambodia are only making the matter worse, he adds.
"If neighbouring countries stopped making business with these artifacts, this could be stopped but they still leave the door open for this kind of thing," he says.
"We are very worried."
Looting in Cambodia has always been associated with the destruction of the country's Angkorian temples, but its Iron Age sites have increasingly become the target of pillagers since the late 1990s, Heritage Watch's O'Reilly says.
At that time workers building a road through northwestern Beantey Meanchey province discovered a burial site that was "very well-endowed with various ornaments".
"So they began to loot that site wholesale, and that really sparked a flourish of looting," O'Reilly says.
He says the solution is not to punish poor scavengers, but to eliminate the demand by taking out the middlemen.
"I'm very strongly opposed to prosecuting someone trying to scratch out a living -- the middlemen are not poor," he says, adding that one dealer in Beantey Meanchey reporting made 10 million Thai baht, or around 244,000 dollars last year dealing artifacts.
But bureaucratic bumbling among the ministries in Phnom Penh and apathetic local officials are tipping the balance in favor of the looters, Chuch Phoeurng says.
"Officials from the ministry have gone down to the provinces to explain the situation to the governors and other civil servants. But some ... pretend not to understand, so they must face the law," he says.
But he sees something in the earth at his feet and bends over for a closer look, handing up a sliver of human tooth that he quickly determines to also be worthless and throws away with the broken pottery at the edge of his hole.
This scene will repeat itself hundreds of times over during a single day in these rice fields in southeastern Cambodia where thousands swarm to burrow as far into the earth as they can to scavenge anything that might be saleable, in the process turning hectares of land into a deeply-pitted moonscape.
As tomb raiders plunder Iron Age treasures -- beads, gold ornaments and even the bones from burial mounds -- archaeologists warn that Cambodia's rich pre-Angkorian heritage will be completely lost within three years.
Hundreds, if not more of the 4,000 or so documented sites across the country have already been torn apart, most often by desperately poor farmers urged on middlemen who sell the artifacts at huge markups in Cambodia's cities or on the black market abroad.
"The scale of the looting in Cambodia is breathtaking," says Dougald O'Reilly, director of the independent group Heritage Watch which has been working to protect Cambodia's cultural riches.
"Iron Age sites are being destroyed at an unprecedented rate. In two or three years there will be no sites left," he says.
Cambodia's Iron Age, which lasted from roughly 500 BC to 500 AD, holds the key to understanding the great Angkorian empire, which emerged as a powerful regional force beginning in the 9th century and built the stunning Angkor temple complex in northwestern Cambodia that remains the country's greatest drawcard.
"We're losing all of the information on how Angkor came to be, why Cambodia was one of the most powerful states in Southeast Asia," O'Reilly says.
"This is incredibly important information, for science and Cambodia itself -- the country is losing its identity."
In the pits in Cambodia's southeast, a whoop goes up and dozens of the 100 or so people working over the earth drop their tools and crowd around the lucky hole.
Two urns have been found relatively intact -- but only for a few minutes before they are smashed apart and the debris sifted through for anything more appealing.
Standing at the edge of the hole, 31-year-old Meth Ry carefully unfolds a piece of cloth to reveal several pieces of flattened gold banding that he found in a tomb two days earlier.
In the month that he has been digging here, he has also discovered two skulls, which he says he keeps at his nearby house because "I heard some people like to buy bones".
"I don't know anything about the concerns that we are destroying historic sites. We are poor and we have no food, so we come here to dig and make money to buy rice," he explains.
Around a month ago local newspapers reported that a woman had found gold weights worth 180 US dollars in these dry paddy fields in Prey Veng province, some 90 kilometres (55 miles) east of Phnom Penh, which is believed to have been the site of the ancient city of Tuol Vihear Bitmeas.
Villagers from hundreds of kilometers away flocked to the site, and as the frenzy of scavenging took hold, Meth Ry was one of the first to buy a one-square-meter piece of field from a farmer for about 2.50 dollars and begin digging.
Since then he says he has made about 50 dollars selling beads and other items found in the ground to middlemen who stand at the edges of the field in the evenings and trade money for the daily findings.
Police early in April tried to chase off the treasure hunters, but many still return and pick over the land, driven by the continued demand for artifacts, much of it from collectors in neighbouring countries.
Chuch Phoeurng of Cambodia's Ministry of Culture blames these traders for encouraging villagers to dig up historic sites across the country.
"We need to take action -- the authorities need to arrest these people. We have a law against looting, yet the digging continues because of these traders," he says.
Thriving artifact markets in countries neighbouring Cambodia are only making the matter worse, he adds.
"If neighbouring countries stopped making business with these artifacts, this could be stopped but they still leave the door open for this kind of thing," he says.
"We are very worried."
Looting in Cambodia has always been associated with the destruction of the country's Angkorian temples, but its Iron Age sites have increasingly become the target of pillagers since the late 1990s, Heritage Watch's O'Reilly says.
At that time workers building a road through northwestern Beantey Meanchey province discovered a burial site that was "very well-endowed with various ornaments".
"So they began to loot that site wholesale, and that really sparked a flourish of looting," O'Reilly says.
He says the solution is not to punish poor scavengers, but to eliminate the demand by taking out the middlemen.
"I'm very strongly opposed to prosecuting someone trying to scratch out a living -- the middlemen are not poor," he says, adding that one dealer in Beantey Meanchey reporting made 10 million Thai baht, or around 244,000 dollars last year dealing artifacts.
But bureaucratic bumbling among the ministries in Phnom Penh and apathetic local officials are tipping the balance in favor of the looters, Chuch Phoeurng says.
"Officials from the ministry have gone down to the provinces to explain the situation to the governors and other civil servants. But some ... pretend not to understand, so they must face the law," he says.
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