Cambodia’s Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts announced on June 11 that New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art had returned two highly valuable Khmer-period antiquities, according to the report.
The handover ceremony took place the previous day, June 10, at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in New York, completing the formal transfer of the two ancient objects to the Cambodian side, the report says.
The two returned objects have significant historical research value: a sandstone lintel more than a thousand years old, dating to the seventh–eighth centuries of the pre-Angkor period, and a tenth-century sandstone statue from the renowned Koh Ker archaeological complex.
The return of the two objects was connected to the investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit. The prosecutor’s object-by-object provenance accounts both mention art dealer Doris Wiener; the Metropolitan Museum said its decision to return the objects was based on new information supplied by the prosecutor’s investigation.
The Cambodian authorities praised the completion of the cross-border recovery. The report says the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts thanked US law-enforcement bodies for their key role in the joint operation and international experts for technical assistance in recovering the antiquities.
The report describes the handover as a strong response to transnational antiquities smuggling and an important contribution to safeguarding Cambodia’s cultural heritage and its integrity.
