President Prabowo Subianto received a collection of cultural artefacts from the country’s Papua region that had been illegally taken to the United States, officials said.
The handover took place late Wednesday during a meeting with FBI director Kash Patel at Prabowo’s residence in the Indonesian capital Jakarta.
Patel arrived in Jakarta shortly after talks with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet concerning joint efforts to combat international online scam operations that cheat victims out of billions of dollars annually.
The exchange underscored growing cooperation between Indonesia and the United States in recovering stolen cultural heritage and returning the items to the country of origin, Indonesia Culture Minister Fadli Zon said yesterday.
The artefacts from Papua are part of the cultural heritage of the Dani and Asmat tribes and Lake Sentani communities. They were repatriated through cooperation between Indonesia’s Culture Ministry and the FBI after provenance research established the objects had been smuggled out of Indonesia, Fadli said.
“These are very valuable objects because this repatriation process is part of our effort to restore our cultural sovereignty,” Fadli said, adding that the artefacts will be displayed at Indonesia’s National Museum.
Images from Indonesia’s Presidential Secretariat show several polished stone axe heads and ceremonial objects traditionally associated with Papuan societies.
Traditional Papuan stone axes were more than utilitarian tools. Among highland communities such as the Dani, they historically served as symbols of wealth and status, were exchanged in marriage and ceremonial transactions and were often passed down as treasured ancestral heirlooms, the Culture Ministry said.
The return is the latest in a series of efforts by US authorities to recover and repatriate South-East Asian cultural property that was trafficked through international antiquities networks, the US Embassy in Jakarta said in a statement.
Earlier this month, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton announced the return of two bronze, Buddhist sculptures depicting Avalokiteshvara from the eighth century, the embassy said.
During a repatriation ceremony at the Indonesian Consulate on July 10, Clayton said US authorities would continue working with Homeland Security Investigations to combat illicit trafficking in cultural property and return stolen artworks to their origin countries.
The sculptures were stolen from Indonesian archaeological sites and sold to an American collector by the late antiquities dealer Douglas Latchford. — AP
