Thailand to return recovered artefacts

Thailand announced on Friday that it will repatriate 16 Cambodian artefacts recovered among a trove of antiquities formerly hoarded by a disgraced Thai central intelligence bureau chief.

Twenty other objects from the same stash could also be repatriated if further investigations conclusively find they are Cambodian, Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong said at the Joint Commission for Bilateral Cooperation in Siem Reap.

Thailand did not specify when the objects might be returned, however, and was also not forthcoming about details such as what kind of objects are being returned, or where in Cambodia they were initially stolen from.

“We don’t know how old they are or what the objects are as we have not seen them yet,” said Kong Vireak, director of the National Museum.

The repatriation announcement comes months after Cambodia had no luck in requesting access to the store of artefacts, which includes tens of thousands of Buddhist and Hindu statues, reliefs and figurines.

“Until now, we have not been to Thailand to see any of the objects,” Vireak said, adding that he hopes Cambodian experts will be permitted to jointly assess the remaining items’ authenticity.

Few of the tens of thousands of cultural objects seized from Police Lieutenant Pongpat Chayapan’s alleged crime syndicate have so far been identified. Initial surveys of the inventory in November found that the majority are likely replicas, while a small handful of genuine items could date back 1,400 years and originate in Cambodia’s Phnom Da, the Thai Arts Department director-general said at a press conference in Bangkok after the items were seized.

In addition to artworks smuggled from neighbouring countries, the millions of baht worth of assets recovered from the syndicates numerous stash houses include stacks of cash, luxury timber, animal skins and ivory tusks.

Since 1999, Thailand has repatriated 43 Cambodian antiquities, seven of which were returned in 2009, according to Kuong.

Over the past two years, Cambodia has received a spate of high-profile antiquities repatriations, including from auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s, as well as an unprecedented voluntary return from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/thailand-return-recovered-artefacts