PHNOM PENH, March 7 (Xinhua): A Cambodian authority has recently begun to restore two 50-meter-long sandstone Naga balustrades on the north side of Angkor Wat's causeway in the famed Angkor Archaeological Park in northwest Cambodia, the authority said in a news release on Monday.
Undertaken by stone conservation experts from the Authority for the Protection and Safeguarding of Angkor and the Region of Angkor (APSARA), or the APSARA National Authority (ANA), the restoration work is expected to be completed before the Khmer New Year in mid-April and they will be open for tourists after that.
The two Naga balustrades are in the Angkor Wat's causeway restoration project and they had been temporarily removed in the past, An Sopheap, an archaeologist and head of the working group in charge of the Angkor Wat Temple's causeway restoration project, said in the news release.
Currently, as the Angkor Wat's causeway restoration project has been completed, the team has to take those Naga balustrades to restore to their original places, he added.
According to Sopheap, the two Naga balustrades were once repaired in 1949 during the French colonial era.
Located in Siem Reap province, the 401-square-km Angkor Archaeological Park, inscribed on the World Heritage List of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1992, is the most popular tourist destination in the Southeast Asian nation.
During the pre-COVID-19 pandemic era, the Angkor site received 2.2 million international visitors in 2019, generating 99 million U.S. dollars in revenue from ticket sales, according to the Angkor Enterprise. - Xinhua
