The V&A and British Museum open their collections to check if they hold stolen antiquities.
This Tenth Century Shiva and Skanda statue was recently returned to Phnom Penh from Douglas Latchford's collection
Cambodia wants the UK to help recover antiquities it says were stolen from its temples during years of conflict.The Cambodian delegation hopes to discuss the provenance of objects in the two collections and to examine them in person. The Cambodian team has also been invited to carry out a formal visit to the British Museum in a week's time.
The Cambodians believe ancient statues hold the souls of their ancestors. By speaking to former looters and tracing shipping and sales records, they've determined that many of the stolen works passed through the hands of a rogue British art dealer, Douglas Latchford, who died in 2020.The group has a priority list of items they're interested in discussing with each museum. The British Museum is believed to have approximately 100 Cambodian pieces, though all appear to be in storage.
Much of the looting took place over a three-decade period of civil war and strife. The murderous Khmer Rouge regime held power from 1975 to 1979, when it is thought to have killed more than two million of its own people, and the group controlled large portions of Cambodia until the late 1990s. At a ceremony to celebrate the return, Cambodia's US ambassador, Keo Chhea, said the experience was "like returning the souls of our culture back to our peoples".
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