You know, this whole story is the greatest art heist in history.
Did you personally take any of the statues that were here?
It's like a thousand-year-old jigsaw puzzle. Ah!
Back in the day, there would have been sculpture everywhere,
temples, and then this huge pyramid looming over everything.
Something went wrong in this city.
Something made it collapse.
No one really knows for sure what happened.
-[Phakdey] Josh, come here. -[Josh] What did you find?
[Josh] Ah! We have an inscription!
Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!
-Long way down. -[man] Yeah.
This is literally a message from the past.
We are right now the first people
to see this in a thousand years.
Oh, [bleep] This is unstable.
Okay, here goes nothing.
Oh, look at his face!
Oh, my word.
[suspenseful music playing]
For centuries, the city of Angkor stood as
the capital of Cambodia's mighty Khmer Empire.
Its kings ruled there for 600 years, except for a brief
and mysterious time when the capital
was moved somewhere else entirely.
In the 10th century, a king named Jayavarman IV
decided to build a new center of power
deep in the Cambodian jungle,
a place known as Koh Ker.
Jayavarman oversaw the construction of dozens
of temples, reservoirs, and the tallest pyramid
in the entire country, all of it adorned with
the finest statues in the history of the empire.
But then, only 20 years later, the city was suddenly,
mysteriously abandoned. Its ruins swallowed by the jungle.
But why was it built in such a remote place?
And why did it fall?
Unfortunately, the art and sculptures from the city
that could provide crucial answers have been relentlessly
looted or destroyed.
But now, an international team of investigators
is on the case.
Archaeologists armed with the latest technology
are working hand in hand with former looters
to locate and restore these priceless masterpieces.
So join me as I journey into the untamed jungles
of Southeast Asia to literally piece together
the statues and the secrets of Cambodia's lost capital.
My name is Josh Gates.
-Hello! -Explorer.
-Here goes nothing. -Adventurer.
[exclaims]
Oh, that's a long way down.
And a guy who ends up in some very strange situations.
I'm alive, for now.
With a degree in archaeology and a passion for the unexplained,
I travel to the ends of the Earth investigating
the greatest legends in history.
Ready to rock and roll.
This isExpedition Unknown.
Cambodia, one of my favorite places on Earth.
We are steaming up the mighty Mekong River,
the lifeblood of Southeast Asia.
Beginning high in the Himalayas, these waters travel
more than 3,000 miles through six countries,
nourishing entire civilizations along the way,
including the Khmer Empire, which blossomed into
an ancient superpower.
For 800 years between the seventh and 15th centuries,
the Kingdom of Khmer controlled almost 400,000 square miles.
From its seat of power in Cambodia,
it ruled over much of Southeast Asia,
including present-day Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam.
The empire turned its aptitude for agriculture
into vast wealth.
Militarily, they were proficient in fighting on
both land and water.
This river was the source of much of their power,
allowing for trade and spreading
the empire's culture and influence.
Today, the Mekong also flows through Cambodia's modern metropolis,
an on-again, off-again capital founded in the 15th century.
It's where our investigation begins.
All ashore for Phnom Penh.
Phnom Penh is known as the Pearl of Asia,
and I've come here to begin my investigation
into both the Khmer Kingdom and the theft of its treasures.
My first stop is Cambodia's National Museum.
Waiting inside is American attorney Brad Gordon.
-[Josh] Brad? -Josh.
Hey, how are you, man?
Brad has been working closely with the government
and is leading a worldwide effort
to locate looted art and antiquities
and bring them back to Cambodia.
I do feel slightly upstaged right now.
Yeah, this is Garuda.
Right, Garuda is the Hindu deity of the skies.
-Yes. -And this comes from where?
This comes from Koh Ker, an ancient royal capital of Cambodia.
So let's talk about this place.
Koh Ker is unique.
It is a one-off, right?
It's a capital way out in the jungle.
Yes, it's remote.
It was only for two kings, Jayavarman IV and his son,
-Harshavarman II. -Right.
In 921, Jayavarman IV shocked the Khmer Kingdom
by uprooting the capital from Angkor,
where it had been established for over a century,
to the isolated jungle of Koh Ker.
Jayavarman, and then his son, once he came of age,
took power and ruled there for 20 years.
But then, suddenly and inexplicably,
the new capital collapsed.
During the period of less than two decades,
you have more than 50 temples being constructed at this site
that's very remote.
It doesn't make any sense. Why is it out there?
Right. And they're carving things like this.
Yes. They're making these magnificent pieces.
They're unbelievably beautiful, and they're dynamic.
[Josh] Before the arrival of the Koh Ker style, Khmer statues
stood rigidly upright and wore stern expressions.
But Koh Ker showed gods and kings
that danced, flew, and smiled.
And yet ,this statue is not up at Koh Ker.
It is here in the middle of Phnom Penh,
in the middle of the museum.
How does it get here?
If we go back to 1874, the French came here.
They went up to Koh Ker, and they went temple to temple
to collect statues.
The French incursion into Cambodia sparked
a historic wave of theft that continues to this day.
Some masterpieces, like this one, have been repatriated.
But when it comes to Koh Ker, that's just the tip of the iceberg.
[Brad] So, Josh, in this room there are many statues from Koh Ker.
Uh, these sculptures were looted,
they were taken out of Cambodia,
and then, over the last decade, they were brought back.
So it's not just the colonial French looting out there.
There's a lot of it going on.
We have waves of looting.
When we look at the historical record,
we could get into the early '70s, Vietnam War is raging.
You have a number of statues going out.
-And then, 1975 comes. -The Khmer Rouge.
[Brad] Khmer Rouge.
[Josh] The Khmer Rouge were a radical communist movement
that seized Cambodia's government in 1975.
Under the brutal leadership of Pol Pot,
the Khmer Rouge only ruled for four years,
but in that time, they were responsible for the genocide
of an estimated two million Cambodians.
To isolate their people from anything that might contradict
their extreme doctrine, they also tried to destroy
the existing Cambodian culture,
toppling temples and destroying written records,
leaving painful gaps in the country's history.
But when the Khmer Rouge fell, the looting didn't stop.
Years of war and famine left people desperate
for any way to feed themselves.
And the market for Koh Ker's stolen art was only getting hotter.
In the '80s, there was a lot of statues going out.
In the '90s, it ramps up.
Temples are being totally stripped.
And a lot of that looting is being done by Cambodians at that point, right?
Yes. Former child soldiers of the Khmer Rouge.
Right.
[Josh] Statues and other cultural treasures worth millions
on the art market were funneled
to auction houses who sold them to museums
and collectors all over the world.
This room alone contains masterworks that were once
in the Met, the Cleveland Museum of Art,
the Denver Art Museum, and the Norton Simon
in Pasadena, among many others.
Tracking all of this art down has become Brad's calling,
making him a hero in Cambodia
and the scourge of the black market.
Do we have a sense of how many looted statues
from Cambodia are still out in the world?
So we're tracking 100 museums right now.
There's more than 2,000 statues.
-In museums? -In museums.
And what about private collections?
Maybe another 2,000.
So, how would you feel if the Abe Lincoln monument
was looted and it was here in Cambodia?
Right. That would be insane.
[Brad] Yes.
Josh, not everything is on display to the public.
There's one incredible sculpture
that I want to show you from Koh Ker.
-Here in the museum? -Here in the museum.
-Follow me. -Yeah, sure.
-Josh, um, this is the stone lab. -[Josh] Wow.
Many important pieces that are returned to Cambodia,
-they come here for restoration. -Got it.
So, one of the most important statues to come back, to date,
is this one here, which is Shiva, the Destroyer.
[Josh] Yes.
[Brad] And his son, Skanda, the god of war.
You know, the images are in the image of a god, a Hindu god,
but they also usually reflect the image of the royal family,
so, possibly, this is King Jayavarman IV and his son.
-Oh, his face on Shiva. -His face, yes.
-Wow. -And his son, Harshavarman II, when he's a young boy.
[Josh] Koh Ker's rulers are here, their faces reflected in
their depictions of the gods.
This statue not only has immeasurable cultural value,
but it may also be able to help unlock the secrets
of the city from which it was stolen.
This statue was out at Koh Ker, and it was looted in 1997.
And it went to a man named Douglas Latchford.
You know, this whole story is the greatest art heist in history,
and we see Douglas' fingerprints on everything.
British art dealer Douglas Latchford practically
industrialized the pillaging of Cambodian culture.
Estimates of the number of statues that he smuggled
from Koh Ker over the years range from 500
to well into the thousands,
including the Skanda and Shiva statue,
which he attempted to sell on the black market for $25 million
before his death in 2020.
For the Cambodians, they don't like to put a price
on the statues at all.
They regard it as the souls of their ancestors.
-[Josh] Mmm. -[Brad] So they're spiritual pieces.
They're like living beings.
[Josh] Right.
So, what's going on at Koh Ker now?
We have a whole team up at Koh Ker of archaeologists,
and they're gonna go into places that
nobody's ever gone in before.
-Wow. -And what would be unbelievable
is if we can find more statues.
Do you think there are more statues?
Personally, for sure, yes.
Wow.
So, if you really want to understand the mysteries
of Koh Ker, you have to go there.
And are you going back up there?
Yes, I'll be heading up there in a couple days, so I'll see you there.
-All right, I'll see you at Koh Ker. -See you.
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] It's time to see the lost capital for myself,
but the trip is hardly a hop, skip, and a jump.
So, in order to actually reach Koh Ker,
we're going to have to undertake a journey
that will take us about 250 miles north
and about a thousand years back in time.
First, I have to do something much more dangerous.
I have to drive through the modern capital.
Sure, just come on in here, wherever you need to be.
Hi. Good morning.
Hi.
[upbeat country music playing]
These people are driving on the sidewalk.
Is that legal? I don't know.
It doesn't matter.
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] With Phnom Penh behind me, I speed 200 miles north
toward the Khmer Empire's capital for generations,
both before and after Jayavarman IV.
At the heart of the kingdom is Angkor, which takes up
an area roughly the size of Los Angeles, and which once
supported a population of over a million people,
making it the largest pre-industrial metropolis in the world.
[enthralling music playing]
The city is loaded with stunning architecture,
massive reservoirs, and ornate walls
and gates, including the Door of the Dead,
which was only used during the funeral of a king.
In short, this was the alpha and omega of the Khmer world,
so why would Jayavarman relocate the capital
to a rural backwater in the middle of the jungle?
To learn the answer, I need to push past Angkor
and go deep into the Cambodian wilderness.
Oh, there goes the paved road.
All righty, into the jungles.
This place is wild.
Just a simple dirt road slicing through
this endless green maze.
It's another 70 miles through the jungle to my destination.
It looks like there's nothing here, but we are about
to arrive at the once mighty capital of the Khmer Empire.
Welcome to Koh Ker.
[mysterious music playing]
[Josh] Okay.
[motorcycle engine stops]
Okay.
[kickstand flips]
Now we just need to get to the top.
Let's go.
I'm in the remote ruins of the Cambodian city of Koh Ker,
once briefly the capital of the mighty Khmer Empire.
Okay, here we go.
To learn what caused the city's mysterious downfall,
I climb up the immense step pyramid called Prasat Pram.
[pants] Come on.
It's more than just the tallest pyramid in Koh Ker.
It's the tallest pyramid in all of Cambodia.
[panting]
Okay.
I got this. I got this. Just don't look up.
Ah, I looked up.
[exhales]
And waiting for my sore quads at the top of this monster
is my old friend, journalist Nick Ray.
Nick!
-Josh Gates. -How are you, man?
-Great. Welcome to Koh Ker. -Great to see you.
-It's been too long. -Been too long, man.
[Josh] Nick literally wrote the book on Cambodia,
or at least its Lonely Planet guide.
And he's been a vital contact for me on many adventures.
-[Josh] What a view. -[Nick] What an incredible view.
I feel like we're on top of a mountain here.
Well, we kind of metaphorically are.
This is a temple mountain.
This is meant to be home of the gods.
-Right. -Basically, in the early 10th century, this represented
the largest structure the ancient Khmers had built at that time.
[Josh] And then the real question is,
what the hell is it doing out here?
Because before this city, the real seat of power
was back at Angkor.
[Nick] Absolutely.
All the early capitals were there. Why? Water.
They had the greatest lake in Southeast Asia.
Right, because if you want to build an empire, you need people.
And to keep them alive, you need water.
Absolutely.
And with water, you have rice.
-Rice powered the empire. -[Josh] That's right.
But out here, I don't see any big lakes.
[Nick] No. There's a real lack of water out here.
Scarce water resources.
They really had to manage it carefully
and make it last through the dry season.
So, why go through all the effort? Why come out here and build?
This king, Jayavarman IV, why would he move the capital here?
This is the great mystery that is still vexing
archaeologists and historians.
We do not know enough, but we have some theories.
One of the things we learned from the Angkor Empire
was there was no primogeniture.
[Josh] Primogeniture is a fancy word for a royal inheritance.
A ruler dies and his oldest son automatically takes over.
But it didn't work that way in the Khmer Empire.
Jayavarman IV could not automatically inherit
the throne in Angkor, which meant that he had competitors.
Did Jayavarman build here at Koh Ker to simply establish
his own center of authority?
[Josh] And another possibility?
[Nick] He may have been from here.
Did he want to bring the power back home?
Was this a statement about, "This is where I'm from,
I'm gonna build up my base"?
[Josh] Right.
So regardless of why Jayavarman IV comes here,
he pulls off something pretty incredible
in a short amount of time.
On a monumental scale, literally.
He, followed by his son, Harshavarman II,
they only actually have it as the capital for less than 20 years.
Where you look now, you only see trees and forests
and occasional peaks of a small temple,
but in its day, this was on the scale of Angkor.
[Josh] Beneath this lush canopy was once a formidable city.
More than 50 temples, massive reservoirs,
and countless homes.
A thriving metropolis that supported tens of thousands of people.
[Nick] And the most important thing, which sadly
we don't see today, was statues.
Koh Ker was famous for these beautiful, vivid, dynamic statues.
Pretty much all the statues were looted.
So, back in the day, there would have been sculpture everywhere,
temples, and then this huge pyramid looming over everything.
[Nick] As giant as this seems today, it was even bigger
in its heyday, because, according to inscriptions,
there was a giant golden linga sticking out the top.
Lingas are these, uh, spiritual stone phalluses.
That's a very polite way of saying a giant golden [bleep].
[laughs] Yes, that's right.
That's right. Well, you know, it's a family show, Nick.
It's a family show.
[Josh] Lingas are found at the summits of the Khmer's
most important temples.
They're said to represent an aspect of the god Shiva.
And, apparently, this was a rather impressive one.
[Nick] There was a very large one.
They believe it was 15 feet in height.
[Josh] On top of this pyramid?
[Nick] On top of this pyramid.
So, what happened to this golden linga?
Well, this is still something of a major mystery.
No one really knows for sure what happened.
Some say that it was decapitated, if you like,
and taken back to the seat of power at Angkor.
What better way to put a rival capital in its place?
-Than to chop off its linga. -Exactly.
Right.
[Josh] Of course, the linga might also have been another victim
of Koh Ker's infamous looters,
the gold stripped and sold off.
Other theories suggest it was never removed from the site.
It could still be here.
At the center of the pyramid,
you've got this deep pit going down
into the heart of the temple,
sort of door to the underworld.
Could the linga have toppled in there?
Nobody really knows. So the linga has not been found.
So what's in there?
To be honest, nobody knows for sure.
It's not a place that's been fully explored.
It's basically a place that locals avoid.
Okay.
[Josh] Well, I'm not one to let a portal to the underworld
stop me from finding a golden linga.
Nick is going to try to get permission
for me to enter the sacred pyramid.
Unprecedented access to explore the crown jewel of Koh Ker for answers.
However, these things take time.
So the next morning, I return to my bike to get
my first look at the rest of the city.
The pyramid is just the tip of the spiritual iceberg at Koh Ker.
I'm headed now to relink with Brad Wharton,
who's working with archaeologists at an incredible temple
that might help unravel the mysteries of the capital
and the fate of its mighty kings.
I drive, stunned, amidst the ruins.
Past ancient temples that the jungle has destroyed,
or, in some cases, simply added on to,
with towers of cloying vines.
This, it appears, is what remains of Koh Ker.
Pretty much everywhere you look out at these jungles,
there's construction, signs of life, signs of power.
I pull up to reconnect with Brad Gordon
at the ruins of a grand temple,
where former looters have revealed that they stole priceless statues,
and more may be waiting to be found.
-Welcome to Koh Ker. -Ah, thrilled to be here.
Okay, talk to me about this place.
-[Brad] This is Prasat Krachap. -[Josh] Prasat Krachap.
-Yes. -What's the significance of this temple?
-Do we know what it was used for? -We don't know yet.
This temple is known as the Temple of Inscriptions.
-Hmm. -This temple has the most inscriptions
of any temple in Cambodia.
-In the whole country? -In the whole country.
And we see one right here, right, on these columns,
which is usually where you find them, or in the doorways.
And you would think, with so many inscriptions,
we might understand this place, but no.
No, because it appears to be a list of names.
-Uh-huh. -Thousands of names.
[Josh] Most of the inscriptions found so far have been
just like this.
The results of a census, perhaps, or a roll of honor.
But nothing that tells us how Koh Ker came to be
or why it ceased to be.
And have they found statues and sculptures here?
Yes, the looters found an incredible number of masterpieces.
Remember the Shiva and Skanda that we saw at
-the National Museum? -Yes.
The father and son? That came from here.
That came from this temple?
Yes, the way I learned about it was from a looter.
-His name was Lion. -Right.
[Josh] Toektik, also known as Lion, was a former soldier
in the Khmer Rouge.
He started looting temples in the 1980s and formed a gang
of over 450 desperate men and women
who plundered statues wherever they went,
their take easily numbering in the thousands.
Late in his life, though, Lion began to have regrets.
I became very close friends with him.
He brought me here a couple years ago, and he shared with us
all the secrets, all the places where he had looted.
[Josh] And did he steal other statues from here?
Lion took a dozen statues from here.
Wow.
[Josh] The statues, though, were taken hurriedly,
and many were damaged in the process.
As a result, fragments remain,
fragments that could be matched with looted statues abroad
and used to help Brad bring
those statues home to Cambodia.
I see some hard hats back here, and I can hear digging.
What's the mission right now?
To find more fragments, more inscriptions, more statues.
Everything out here is a mystery.
We're trying to understand the story of this temple.
And, for that reason, we have to look underground.
[Josh] The temple's entrance plaza has been buried for centuries
and has never before been excavated.
Leading this brand-new effort is archaeologist Phin Phakdey.
-What's the plan? We're going to excavate here? -Yeah.
So we can already see there's some sandstone sticking up here.
What else is here, do you think?
Okay. That makes it exciting. Should we find out?
-Yeah. -Let's dig.
-Come on. -Okay.
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] We get to work digging into the ground of
the temple's entrance with pickaxes and shovels.
There are challenges upon challenges here at this site.
First of all, the top layer of the soil in some areas
is so hard you might mistake it for rock.
And intertwined with all the ruins are massive roots
that have to be chopped through.
Just getting a few inches into the ground is hard labor.
I'm working with archaeologist Thach Phanith
when we make our first discovery.
So something coming into view here.
This is carved, yeah?
Oh, a human body here and here.
Wow.
Phakdey joins us as we carefully expose
more of the carving.
-Oh, this is a face. -[Phakdey speaking]
Oh, look at this!
And a face. And another face.
Oh, my word.
[dramatic music playing]
-Oh. -[Josh] Hands are up?
-[Phakdey] Yeah. -[Josh] Their hands are up.
-They're praying? -[Phakdey speaking]
[Josh] Yes.
I'm in the ruins of the ancient Cambodian city of Koh Ker.
Mysteries about its construction and collapse
persist after a thousand years.
But archaeologists here are seeking answers by restoring
cultural treasures that have been relentlessly looted.
Now we've found a remarkable slab of sandstone that no one
has laid eyes on since the glory days of the Khmer Empire.
And the exquisite carving on its front is literally divine.
And so who are they praying to?
Is this a person or is this an animal?
Are they praying to somebody on the elephant?
Indra is the god of the west, east, east?
-East, the god of the east. -Yeah.
And so maybe they're praying up
-to Indra seated on the elephant. -Yeah.
There's a whole scene here. There's a story being told here.
-Yeah. -And that story will tell us more about this temple.
Yeah.
-Okay, let's read the next chapter. Come on. -Okay.
[Josh] The tools of the trade here
consist of brushes and soft bamboo sticks,
which push dirt away without damaging the sandstone.
-We have more people here, yes? -Yeah, yeah.
-Same pose, praying? -Yes.
If this is Indra, God of the East, would this be facing east?
And east is which way?
It's this way.
So this stone would have been up and facing east.
Therefore, we should have carvings on the outside facing west, right?
And that would be the entrance here.
[Josh] The long carving here was almost certainly part of
an entryway to the temple known as a pediment,
which is an ornate triangular feature
that would have presided over the doorway here.
So there should be really fine carvings on the other side.
Wow.
The whole crew kicks into a new gear to excavate the carving.
More huge blocks of stone emerge
from the earth all around us.
These could be more pieces of the entryway,
a major find that would help explain more about
the origins and downfall of Koh Ker.
And it turns out that Phin Phakdey is the man
with the lucky hand.
[Phakdey speaking]
-[Josh] Column piece? -Yeah.
We have decoration up here, but no writing.
[exclaims] We have an inscription!
[Phakdey] Yeah.
My word!
[Josh] It's ancient Khmer.
[Phakdey speaking]
[laughing]
So this has been completely buried,
which means, right now, in this instant,
we are the first people to see this inscription
in a thousand years.
This is literally a message from the past
reaching out to us right now.
Phakdey cleans out the inscriptions to make them legible.
This column keeps going, yeah?
-It's underneath this huge root? -Uh-huh.
The column has been buried for so long that a massive
root system has grown across the top of it.
To get the full inscription, we'll need to get chopping.
Yep.
Okay.
[Phakdey speaking]
[Josh] We'll be photographing and scanning the inscriptions
to send to the National Museum,
where experts can translate them.
So, what about on the sides?
So this just looks smooth, nothing here.
And this side?
Flank here too?
[Phakdey speaking]
-There's inscriptions? -Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Look at that! There's writing on this side.
-Dude! -Wow.
Unbelievable!
-And it's the column from the front of the temple. -Yeah.
So it should tell us a lot about this building, right?
New discovery.
-The Phakdey column? -[laughs]
What do you think?
The Josh column?
I mean, it does have a nice ring to it.
-I won't argue with that, Phakdey. -Yeah.
I love this.
Oh, this is incredible.
Guys, more inscription here. Look.
-Oh, really? -[Josh] Look, look, look.
[Phakdey speaking]
[Josh] More there?
[Phakdey speaking]
-Oh! -Oh!
Look at that! More writing!
[Josh] Wow.
So somewhere on here.
Maybe down here.
Maybe this piece right here. Look at this.
Ha!
-It's like a thousand-year-old jigsaw puzzle. -[chuckles]
That's incredible.
So, do you guys have any super glue?
-No. -[all laughing]
[Josh] For an archaeologist, this is a field of dreams.
We're finding literally tons of amazing material.
And one of the most momentous finds is right under our feet.
[dramatic music playing]
[scraping]
[Josh] Oh, sandstone.
Yeah, it's like bumpy. Look at that.
[Phakdey speaking]
[Josh] I don't know. I don't know. What is it?
[laughing]
[Josh] Broken here.
Looks like fish skin almost.
-A lion? -Yeah.
-This is the hair from the lion, the mane? -Yeah.
-Head is here? -Yeah.
-And the body? -Yeah.
Get out of here.
This is amazing.
Often outside of these temples,
you see lions, guardians of the temple.
It's a tradition that carried on for centuries.
We see it in Europe, even in America,
lions guarding libraries
and museums, guardians of knowledge or of sacred spaces.
[Josh] This fragment is invaluable.
If the rest of the lion is here, the fragment can restore the full piece.
And if the rest of the lion has already been looted,
the fragment can be matched to the larger statue
and used as evidence to help repatriate one of
Koh Ker's masterpieces.
And it's just been sitting here,
waiting silently for a millennium.
Awesome. Do you want to leave this for a photo?
Yeah.
[Josh] Each piece that we find has to be photographed
and scanned in situ before being moved for preservation,
a process that will take several hours.
While Phakdey's team does the hard work of cataloging the finds,
I receive word that Nick Ray has come through.
We have permission to explore the city's massive pyramid.
Phakdey joins me to see for himself
if the missing golden linga statue
is hiding inside what the locals believe
is a portal to the underworld.
I see you've got some climbing experts here.
[Phakdey] Yeah.
And what do you think is down there?
[Josh] Hm. Okay.
-So are you going down? -[Phakdey] No.
You just want someone to go first to look for snakes.
-Is that what's happening here? -Yes.
[laughs] Okay.
[Josh] Phakdey has called in a rigging team, which has
prepared a way for me to get safely into the shaft.
One hopes.
After all, it's a 50-foot dead drop
surrounded by unstable stone walls.
[dramatic music playing]
I gear up and get ready to descend into the underworld.
Okay.
Let's get crazy.
A task which Phakdey and his crew take incredibly seriously.
[Phakdey speaking]
Here okay. Yeah.
[speaking prayer]
[Josh] Phakdey is a trained archaeologist,
but his veneration of this sacred place transcends science.
After this ceremony, he will remain above
while I enter the pyramid.
Okay.
[Josh] With the protection of the Cambodian spirits secured,
it's time for me to go over the edge.
Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Long way down.
Boy.
All right, I'm out over the edge.
Okay, heading down.
All right, I'm out over the edge.
Okay, heading down.
[Josh] In the middle of the largest pyramid in Cambodia
is a 50-foot deep shaft said to lead directly
to the underworld,
so, naturally, I'm jumping in.
The stones are really mossy and overgrown.
I'm terrified to think of what might be living in the cracks between them.
Scorpions, snakes, things like that are very common here.
Nice and slow.
[Josh] Yeah, I'm good.
No golden linga yet.
Let me have a little more slack. Whew.
A 15-foot-tall gold statue known as a linga
once stood within a shrine at the top of the pyramid.
It may have been taken by Koh Ker's looters,
or fragments of it could be directly below me.
Down, down, down.
Okay, I'm approaching the bottom.
Keep going.
Okay, I'm down.
Let's have a look down here, see what we see.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Josh] Not yet.
Piece of ceramic here.
It looks like it's terracotta. It's like earthenware.
[Josh] Yeah.
The ceramic could be from the roof of the original shrine
that was here over the golden linga,
which means that this artifact here, about a thousand years old.
Amazing.
Just a single piece and some very nasty looking spiders.
Other than that, nothing here.
But there may be a reason we're not seeing that linga.
I don't think that where I'm standing is actually
the bottom of this shaft.
Look at this.
So we can see here, the bottom, this is all compacted dirt.
Underneath me, there could be much more to this pit.
This pyramid's over 100 feet tall.
I've only gone down about half that distance.
Folklore is that this pyramid shaft goes
all the way down to the underworld itself.
And, since we can't get any further, who's to say?
Maybe it does.
[Josh] The ancient pyramid structure is precarious,
so digging further down into the shaft could cause
the walls to collapse.
I'm coming up.
-[stones crumbling] -[Josh] Oh, [bleep]
This is unstable.
[Josh] It's, like, terrifying.
They're very slippery, and one just almost fell out.
I'm hesitant to put too much of my trust in those blocks.
[Josh] The shaft is clearly unsound, which makes being inside it
even more dangerous than it was a minute ago.
I just don't want to pull on these blocks now.
Okay, new system.
I'm just gonna go up the sides this time with my feet.
Okay.
Bracing my feet against the rock wall,
I ascend as fast as I can.
Can I put my weight on this? It's okay?
-Okay. -Whew!
Whew!
[bleep]
Never again.
[Josh] Exploring further here will be impossible
without some major league engineering.
Along with a missing linga,
there could be other statues that would fill in
some of the blanks of Koh Ker's hazy history.
But when it comes to this pyramid,
perhaps that's where they belong, in between
the world of the living and that of the spirits.
The next morning, I return to Prasat Krachap Temple,
where Phakdey's dig team is ready to extract
the huge stones that were once part of
the temple's magnificent entrance.
Once we get the stones out of the ground, we hope to be able to reassemble
the ancient pieces and reconstruct
the temple's entrance.
-You want me to hold this? -Yeah.
Step one is erecting a system of scaffolding and pulleys
that will hopefully make light work of the heavy rock.
First thing we're going to try to move is this?
Yeah.
[chuckles]
[man speaking indistinctly]
Lifting pieces like this is hugely stressful
because, even though these blocks are massive,
they can still crack in half.
And we have incredible art on this side and maybe underneath.
The challenge is getting the straps underneath it
and getting it balanced, so it doesn't swing out
of control and break.
The pulleys work by redirecting the force
of the stone's weight.
Okay, here goes nothing.
In this case, about two tons, allowing us to quickly lift
what would take a dozen of us by hand.
It's clear. It's clear.
It's crucial that we do this carefully.
If the stone falls or if the rigging collapses,
it would do more than damage a major archaeological find.
It would be potentially deadly.
[all speaking indistinctly]
[Josh] Go, go, go, go.
Okay, stop.
The first piece of the temple's entryway
is out of the earth.
Now we need to get to the rest of the stones
before trying to put the puzzle together.
Yeah. Good.
-Okay, another one. -Good job.
-[all clapping] -Good job, everybody.
Is that lunch, or?
No, okay.
Next on our list is the slab that Phakdey and I exposed earlier,
near where our lion fragment was found.
One side was elaborately carved with the image of an elephant,
which the team believes belongs to
the Hindu god of the East, Indra.
We think there might be more carvings underneath, yeah?
[Phakdey speaking]
So what's the plan?
Lift it by the corner and then get another support?
Right, okay.
[speaking in local language]
We're going to rotate this whole thing 90 degrees now,
see if there's anything carved underneath it.
Here we go. Here we go.
Careful. Careful.
[all exclaiming]
Ah! Look at this!
[upbeat music playing]
This putt-putt course in Siem Reap boasts
incredible miniature versions of
the Khmer Empire's greatest achievements.
And if that's not enough, a hole-in-one on any hole
gets you a free drink.
And, yes, that includes beer, so let's do this.
Good start.
[exclaiming in frustration]
Fortunately, I found some local kids who know
this course like the back of their hand.
Hold on.
Yes! Nice work! Nice work! Okay. Shh-shh.
Can I get a beer over here?
I just got a hole in one.
And suddenly, it's a new game.
Another beer, please.
The kids are talented.
Josh, it's your turn.
I'm going to sit this hole out.
Feel free to miss one, okay?
[dramatic music playing]
This is all carved.
[Phakdey speaking]
[Josh] In the ancient ruins of the Cambodian city of Koh Ker,
I'm helping a team of archaeologists rebuild
the entrance to a temple, which may explain why
this one-time capital was built
in the middle of the jungle and then suddenly collapsed.
Look at how deeply this is carved.
Mostly when we see these on the outside of temples,
they're all weathered away, but you can see here
the depth of this sculpture.
It's incredibly vivid.
There, look.
-[Phakdey] Look at that. -Ha-ha!
The head of god.
The head of the god Varuna.
Wow.
Varuna was the Hindu god of the West.
We already found the elephants of the God of the East, Indra,
on the opposite side of this stone,
so it makes sense that Varuna is here.
Oh, I'm speechless.
This is about as well-preserved as you can get,
'cause it's just been face down in the sand,
just waiting for a thousand years.
Anxious to begin reassembling the pediment, we next turn
our attention to the largest slab of stone we've uncovered.
Yes, the big block. Okay.
How much do you think this piece weighs?
[Josh] Here we go.
[speaking indistinctly]
[Josh] Three-and-a-half tons.
This thing weighs more than a moving truck,
and we're lifting it with a contraption made out of spare parts.
[all speaking indistinctly]
[chuckles] It's working.
Finally, we're left with only one more stone to turn,
what appears to be the very top of the pediment.
-We're going to try and lift? -Yeah.
-This way? -Okay.
[Phakdey speaking]
[all grunting]
-[Phakdey] Ooh. -[Josh laughs]
Oh, unbelievable.
Look at this.
We have a figure here, yes?
[Phakdey] Yeah.
-And here, the god here with this framing. -Yeah.
Beautiful.
-Okay. -[all exclaiming]
[Josh] We've managed to pull all of the stones from the ground.
Now it's time to see how they all fit together.
Watch your fingers.
We start by placing one of the site's thinner slabs
on top of the piece with the elephant carving.
We lock the upper stone into place and rejoin
a sculpture that has been divided for a thousand years.
Oh, look at that. The elephant is back together.
Now with this middle section here, we can see our elephant.
-Yeah. -Beautiful.
Right here, second elephant, third elephant.
So three different elephants here.
The elephant is whole, and it even has a name,
Airavata, mount of the Hindu God of the East, Indra.
This is amazing.
But the archaeologists are concerned that
this stack is too fragile to build upon.
Instead, we use the next layer as our new base
and work upwards, now with the west side
of the pediment facing us.
All right, since this piece is really stable,
we're going to try to stack this piece on top of it
in its original position.
Despite having been in the ground for hundreds of years,
the stones lock together in place perfectly.
-[all groaning] -Good?
All that remains now is to place the ornate
triangular capstone of the pediment.
In just moments, we're going to get our first look
at a reconstructed entrance of a temple of Koh Ker.
Okay.
An ancient masterpiece that could tell us
the full story of this doomed capital.
Up, up, up, up, up, up.
More, more, more, more, more.
Almost there.
[all speaking indistinctly]
[Josh] Next time...
The conclusion to myExpedition Unknown event
in the jungles of Cambodia.
A lot that we still don't know, which is what makes this really exciting.
To restore priceless cultural treasures,
I'll explore some of the most dangerous corners
of Southeast Asia...
Ooh, [bleep] Back up, back up, back up.
...and come face to face with the former Khmer Rouge soldiers
responsible for their destruction.
So there may be priceless statues here underwater?
-Oh, there it is. -[man] Yep, right there.
[Josh] Then I'll answer one of history's most persistent questions.
Why did this miraculous city collapse into ruin?
I don't see a huge structure here.
-Like, where is it? -It's gone.
[Josh] It's an urgent rescue mission with an incredible conclusion.
On the next Expedition Unknown.
-[Josh] You think it's part of a pedestal? -I recognize it.
It's like we found a corner of a Picasso.
Ah! Just interlocked into place.