Bangkok:
Two ancient sandstone artefacts believed to have been stolen from Thailand for the duration of the Vietnam War have been unveiled Monday at a Bangkok museum, greeted with a fanfare of standard dancers and an elaborate worship ceremony.
The temple help beams — which have been returned Friday — boast exquisite carvings of the Hindu deities Indra and Yama that date back to the late 10th or 11th century.
They had been on show for decades at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum, and their repatriation to Thailand followed a yearslong investigation by the US Department of Homeland Security.
On Monday, museum employees meticulously unpacked the artefacts beneath the watchful gaze of Culture Minister Itthiphol Khunpluem as Thai standard music played.
“These two lintels are evidence of our rich and prosperous history dating back many centuries ago,” he stated, thanking US authorities and the Thai Foreign Affairs Ministry for the “relentless pursuit of the sandstones”.
Itthiphol also stated the government is nevertheless deliberating whether or not they would be taken to smaller sized, neighborhood museums in the provinces of Buriram and Sa Kaeo, which border neighbouring Cambodia.
The lintels have features that mirror famed Cambodian temples — displaying the influence and attain of the ancient Khmer Kingdom — and are believed to have been stolen out of Thailand amongst 1958 and 1969.
As music blared, Thai standard dancers in gold-flecked dresses donning plastic face shields performed for the duration of the unveiling ceremony for the artefacts.
Massive towers of fruit have been also on show about flower wreaths — an providing to the gods to safeguard the lintels.
Itthiphol stated there are nevertheless “13 more Buddha statues and engraved artefacts waiting to be repatriated from the US”.
The California museum had disputed investigators’ allegations that the artefacts have been stolen, and insisted it had extended planned to return them.
US museums are not the only ones to be embroiled in art provenance scandals in current years.
Australia has repatriated at least eight looted statues to India considering the fact that 2014.
France has vowed to return things taken from Senegal and Benin, when the Netherlands is moving to repatriate artefacts stolen from its former colonies.
()