In 1975 and until 1979, the Khmer Rouge regime turned Cambodia into a communist peasant dictatorship. With rural populations being displaced and arable land requisitioned for collectivised rice farming, artisanal silk weaving and fibre production nearly fully stopped. During that period, the National Museum of Cambodia, located in Phnom Penh and founded in 1919 during the French protectorate was shut down and closed until the collapse of the regime. After its reopening in 1979, more than three-quarters of its textile collection was missing, most likely due to looting and environmental degradation. All of the polychrome weft ikat (sampot hol / សំពត់ ហូល) and the religious pictorial ikat hangings (hol pidan / ហូលពិដាន), two highly recognisable types of Cambodian textiles, had disappeared. Since the 1920s, these precious silks had been collected and cared for by successive museum curators from museum founder George Groslier to Jean Boisselier, Madeleine Giteau and first Cambodian director Chea Thay Seng until the early 1970s.