Where they belong: Minister-Counselor Andrew Herrup paying respects during a repatriation event at the National Museum in Phnom Penh. — AFP
Buddhist monks in Phnom Penh chanted blessings and threw flowers to welcome 14 trafficked artefacts repatriated from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The Angkorian artworks, which included a 10th century goddess sandstone statute and a large Buddha head from the 7th century, were stolen by antiquities trafficker Douglas Latchford before ending up in New York.
“I am so glad and so happy to see our ancestors back home,” Cambodian Culture Minister Phoeurng Sackona said on Thursday at the repatriation ceremony.
“We have many more treasures at the Met, which we also hope will be returned to Cambodia,” she added.
Sackona said more than 50 stolen artifacts would return to Cambodia from the United States in the near future.
The minister also called on private collectors and museums around the world to follow the Met and return looted artefacts.
“This return of our national treasures, held by the Met, is of utmost importance not only for Cambodia, but for all of humankind,” she said.
Latchford, who died aged 88 at his home in Bangkok, was widely regarded as a scholar of Cambodian antiquities, winning praise for his books on Khmer Empire art.
He was charged in 2019 by prosecutors in New York with smuggling looted Cambodian relics and helping to sell them on the international art market. — AFP
