Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam say the Denver Art Museum still holds their stolen heritage

[geovalin]

Government officials from three Southeast Asian nations say the Denver Art Museum continues to house antiquities stolen from their countries’ ancient temples and heritage sites. Representatives from Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam sent letters to the museum, via U.S. investigators, in May and June, saying the prized relics had no legal export permits to lawfully leave their countries. The museum, they said, did not respond.

“There is a taint on these cultural properties at the Denver Art Museum,” Phoeurng Sackona, Cambodia’s minister of culture and fine arts, wrote in a June letter obtained by The Denver Post.

 

The countries are seeking the return of eight pieces in all — including six donated to the museum by Emma C. Bunker, a former Denver Art Museum trustee and research consultant. In December, The Post published a three-part investigation into Bunker’s critical role in a decades-long antiquities trafficking operation that implicated some of the world’s top museums and private collectors.
 

 

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