School of Oriental and African Studies - Back on the good foot

An academic has paved the way for the reassembly of an important Buddhist statue after finding its legs in a Cambodian forest. The largest intact piece of the eight-headed, 3m-high sandstone statue, which was found in Angkor, depicts Hevajra, a warlike tantric Buddhist deity. It has been displayed by the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art since the 1930s, but has long been missing its lower quarters. Peter Sharrock, senior teaching fellow in the art and archaeology of South East Asia at the School of Oriental and African Studies, found the missing limbs during a recent trip to Cambodia for an archaeological conference. He made the discovery while spending the day searching the forest in Angkor.