Cambodia welcomes the Metropolitan Museum’s repatriation of statues looted over decades of turmoil

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — The return to Cambodia this week of 14 sculptures that had been looted from the country during a period of war and unrest is like welcoming home the souls of ancestors, Cambodia’s culture minister said Thursday.

The items repatriated from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Ar t arrived Wednesday and were displayed to journalists and VIPs on Thursday at the National Museum in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh.

They “were made between the 9th and 14th centuries in the Angkorian period and reflect the Hindu and Buddhist religious systems prevailing at that time,” the museum said in a statement this week.

A statement from Cambodia’s Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts said the “historic homecoming of national treasures” followed several years of negotiations between Cambodia’s art restitution team, U.S. federal prosecutors in New York, investigators from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Metropolitan Museum.

Cambodian Culture Minister Phoeurng Sackona said the return of the artifacts was very important for the Cambodian people for recalling the heritage of their ancestors through good times and bad.

“The pieces were staying a long, long time abroad, but today they returned to Cambodia, like a blessing for our people for peace, stability in our country now,” she said.

To Cambodians, the returned artworks carry with them the souls of their ancestors, she said. Bringing back the souls of ancestors also includes bringing history, admiration and knowledge, Phoeurng Sackona said.

She said without elaborating that Cambodia hopes to receive very soon another 50 artifacts from the U.S. Cambodia claims that other items illegally trafficked from the country are still at the Metropolitan, as well as at