Cambodia’s Prime Minister, Hun Manet, recently headed a ceremony celebrating the restitution of numerous valuable artifacts from overseas museums and private collectors. The government plans to continue efforts to repatriate more items. The 70 returned statues were showcased at the Peace Palace, signifying a symbolic reconnection of the Cambodian people with their ancestral heritage. Most of these artifacts were looted during a tumultuous period when Cambodia was under the oppressive Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s.
Cambodia has witnessed a positive trend in recent years, where art and archaeological treasures are being returned to their home countries. This includes not only ancient Asian artworks but also pieces that were lost or stolen during conflicts in nations like Syria, Iraq, and Nazi-occupied Europe. Over 70 Khmer cultural objects were returned through various means such as voluntary returns, negotiations, seizures, and legal actions, sourced from collections like the Lindemann family, Jim Clark, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The repatriated items include significant Hindu and Buddhist masterpieces from the Angkor period of the 9th to 14th century and earlier. Among these treasures are invaluable stone statues like a mythical warrior from the Hindu epic Mahabharata, statues of deities Shiva and Parvati, and the Ardhanarishvara statue from the ancient capital of Koh Ker. From 1996 to last month, Cambodia has received a total of 1,098 artifacts, with 571 coming from private collections and 527 from foreign institutions and governments.
The 70 items exhibited during the recent event include 14 pieces that were returned from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in early July, while the rest were repatriated from private collectors at the end of the same month. Notably, the pieces from the New York museum were linked to art dealer Douglas Latchford, accused in 2019 of orchestrating the sale of looted Cambodian antiquities on the global art market. Latchford, who passed away the following year, had denied any involvement in smuggling.
The U.S. Embassy in Cambodia released a statement expressing the U.S. government’s role in facilitating the return of over 150 antiquities, including items like the Hindu elephant god Ganesh statue and the 10th-century ‘Skanda on a Peacock,’ currently displayed at the National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh. Chargé d’Affaires Bridgette Walker from the embassy, present at the ceremony, emphasized the United States’ commitment to protecting Cambodia’s cultural heritage and the significance of returning looted artifacts to their rightful home. Despite tensions in Cambodian-U.S. relations due to Washington’s criticism of alleged political repression and human rights violations in Cambodia, the collaboration on cultural heritage preservation remains positive.
