Head of an image of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara

A sense of great strength tempered by inner warmth marks the faces of sculptures of Cambodia’s Angkor kingdom. Some people have often found these faces enigmatic because, even though they are very stylized, they still seem conscious and alert.

Mystery also surrounds this head, which is more than twice life-size and can be identified as the bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteshvara, by the seated Buddha image at the front of its hairdress. Buddhism came to Cambodia some fifteen hundred years ago, and was often an important cultural factor there. From the period of this sculpture, the early or mid-tenth century, however, very little Buddhist art remains. The statue from which this head came must have been, if standing, about ten feet tall. (This is why it is displayed so high.) We do not know what temple it came from, or even whether its temple survives in recognizable form.