Cambodia finds its 1st ancient ironworks site in history

PHNOM PENH, The Apsara Authority of Cambodia has found and excavated for the first time in its history the ancient ironworks site at Khav village, Khav commune, Chi-kreng district of Siem Reap province where is the home of Angkor Wat temple, the local media reported on Saturday.

"We have excavated four sites and each site has size of five meters in length and two meters in width, and we also found iron mines, some potteries, pieces of cook, some bamboos, other ancient materials, and a tube for blowing the air into the ancient cook to melt the iron stone," the khmer language newspaper Rasmei Kampuchea quoted Ea Darith, deputy director of temple conservation for external affairs of Angkor wat park as saying, who is also expert for leading the excavation group.

"Those sites were used for melting iron mines and it was belonged to aborigine "Kouy" and their relatives still exist in living in Cambodia now," he said. "They melted those iron mines to produce as guns, swords, javelins, and other daily households including axes, knifes, and chisels for the king at that time," he added.

"According to the analysis on potteries, those sites were constructed in the 11th or 13th century," Ea Darith said.

At the same time, Apsara Authority also found the ancient Chinese ointment containers which Khmer imported from China. "Khmer and Chinese people got married and lived at Angkor Wat region at that time. So we could find them," he said, adding that those ancient Chinese ointment containers were made in 12th or 13th century.

"Our excavation of the sites was stopped temporarily because our experts need to take those materials for laboratory and took photos to print on books for keeping for next generation to research. There are five sites of iron works here and we will excavate one more in the future at the area," according to Ea Darith.