A concrete marquette, depicting Pol Pot standing heroically with figures representing farmers and ...

A concrete marquette, depicting Pol Pot standing heroically with figures representing farmers and soldiers, sits in the rear courtyard of Cambodia's National Museum in Phnom Penh. Destined to be mounted on the top of Wat Phnom Temple, the symbolic heart of Phnom Penh, the marquette was made for Pol Pot's approval by the painters and sculptors who had been imprisoned in the infamous Tuol Sleng Prison, a Khmer Rouge facility located just outside Phnom Penh which used for torturing and killing between 14,000 and 17,000 Cambodians who were considered enemies of the state. The marquette was completed at the end of December 1978, but the lightning invasion by the Vietnamese in January 1979 brought the project to an abrupt halt. Sitting immediately behind the marquette is a sculpture of a 'naga', (a Buddhist symbol of wisdom and justice traditionally represented as a seven headed cobra) while buckets and a broom lie on the raised base of the building.