Cambodia welcomes the Met's repatriation of centuries-old statues looted during past turmoil
Cambodia’s culture minister says the return to Cambodia this week of 14 sculptures that had been looted from the country during a period of war and unrest is like welcoming home the souls of ancestors
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — The return to Cambodia this week of 14 sculptures that had been looted from the country during a period of war and unrest is like welcoming home the souls of ancestors, Cambodia’s culture minister said Thursday.
The items repatriated from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Ar t arrived Wednesday and were displayed to journalists and VIPs on Thursday at the National Museum in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh.
They “were made between the 9th and 14th centuries in the Angkorian period and reflect the Hindu and Buddhist religious systems prevailing at that time,” the museum said in a statement this week.
A statement from Cambodia’s Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts said the "historic homecoming of national treasures” followed several years of negotiations between Cambodia’s art restitution team, U.S. federal prosecutors in New York, investigators from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Metropolitan Museum.
