Its collection includes over 14,000 items, from prehistoric times to periods before, during and after the Khmer Empire, which at its height stretched from Thailand, across present-day Cambodia, to southern Vietnam.

The National Museum of Cambodia is located on Street 10 in central Phnom Penh, to the north of the Royal Palace and on the west side of Veal Preah Man square.

In 1966 Chea Thay Seng was the first Cambodian director of the museum and dean of the newly created Department of Archaeology at the Royal University of Fine Arts.

This university that form its foundation as the Ecole des Arts Cambodgiens in 1920 was intimately linked with students, artisans and teachers who worked to preserve Cambodian cultural traditions, can still be found to the rear of the museum.

The museum, closed between 1975 and 1979, and was found in disrepair, its roof rotten and home to a vast colony of bats, the garden overgrown, and the collection in disarray, many objects damaged or stolen.

A permanent exhibition, Post-Angkorian Buddha, supported by UNESCO and a number of individuals and local businesses, opened in 2000 to extend the religious function of the museum.

Of those repatriated and put on display at the museum, a stone sculpture from the 10th century of the female goddess Uma from the ancient royal capital of Koh Ker, was highly anticipated.