Welcome home! Three 1,000-year-old statues returned to Cambodia by the US after they were looted during the civil war

Daily Mail (UK) | 3 June 2014

Three 1,000-year-old statues have been returned to Cambodia by the US after they were looted from a temple during the country's civil war.

It is not yet known when the statues, which depict Hindu mythology, will go on display, but they were handed over in an official ceremony attended by Deputy Prime Minister Sok An and US diplomat Jeff Daigl.

Cambodian officials say the statues were looted in the 1970s by being hacked off their bases in the Koh Ker temple complex in Phnom Penh, Siem Reap province, which is home to the Angkor Wat temples.

Warm welcome: Cambodia's Deputy Prime Minister Sok An (R) looks on as US diplomat Jeff Daigle (L) lays flowers at a ceremony for the return of 10th century statues in Phnom Penh

A 1993 Cambodian law prohibits the removal of cultural artifacts without government permission. But there is also general agreement in the art world about pieces acquired illegitimately after 1970 — the year of a UN cultural agreement targeting trafficking in antiquities.

The three statues are representations of the mythological Hindu figures Duryodhana, Balarama and Bhima.

Their return marks a step forward in efforts to bring back together nine figures that once formed a tableau in a tower of the temple. The scene captured a famous duel in Hindu mythology in which the warrior Duryodhana is struck down by his cousin Bhima at the end of a bloody war of succession while seven attendants look on.

Damaged: The Khmer statues were hacked off their bases in the 1970s and take out of the country

Two statues from the same temple that had been displayed for nearly two decades at 

New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art were returned to Cambodia last November. 

The voluntary return of the pair of 'Kneeling Attendants' statues was seen to set a precedent for the restoration of artworks to their places of origin, from which they were often removed in complicated circumstances.

Experts say that looters hacked the Koh Ker figures off their bases during the civil war. Some were apparently smuggled out of the country and eventually landed with private collectors or in museums, as did statues from other temples that the Cambodian government hopes to reclaim.

Open air museum: The Koh Ker site is about 120km from Siem Reap in the north of Cambodia

The Cambodian government is asking other museums to return similar objects. Sok An said the handover ceremony was 'to welcome these three heroes back where they belong.'

'In a long 40-year journey, surviving civil wars, looting, smuggling and travelling the world, these three have now regained their freedom and returned home,' he said.

The Norton Simon Museum has displayed for nearly four decades its 5ft-high sandstone figure of Bhima, which is missing its hands and feet. It said last month it had acquired the statue from a reputable dealer in 1976, but that the chaos of war in Cambodia made it unclear how the dealer had acquired it.

Museum pieces: A Cambodian man prays at the three Hindu statues during the handover ceremony between the US and Cambodia

Standing proud: The statues were returned by America's Norton Simon Museum in California

The Pasadena, California, museum announced in a statement that it was returning the statue 'as a gesture of friendship, and in response to a unique and compelling request by top officials in Cambodia to help rebuild its "soul" as a nation.'

Sotheby's also agreed to return the footless figure of Duryodhana, valued at $2 million to $3 million, which was placed in its catalogue in 2011 after the widow of its former Belgian owner gave it up for sale. 

The auction house agreed to surrender the statue, settling a lawsuit filed by the US government on Cambodia's behalf.

Jeff Daigle, deputy chief of the U.S. Embassy in Cambodia, said over the past two decades 97 Cambodian artifacts have been repatriated from the United States.

'While celebrate a happy ending for the statues we see today, we must not forget that the commercial trade in illicitly acquire art still strives. It is incumbent upon each of us to be part of the solution in the combatting this shameful crime,' he said.