via ABC News, 04 August 2023: Over 100 Khmer statues believed to be taken from Cambodian temples are in Australian galleries, with Cambodian experts seeking their return.
More than 100 Khmer statues “stolen” from temples and sacred sites in Cambodia are believed to be sitting in three of Australia’s most prestigious galleries, as well as smaller museums and private collections around the country.
That is the conclusion of a delegation of Cambodian cultural heritage experts that has just wrapped up a 10-day visit to Australia.
The team met with curators from five museums with Khmer antiquities in their collections, including the National Gallery of Australia (NGA), National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) and the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW).
How do you know these 100 artifacts were ‘stolen’,…..where is the proof?
They originally could have been gifted, donated, purchased legally, inherited, traded or discovered in a charity shop. This type of behavior is getting out of hand, where art is being slowly censored/hijacked, turning institutions and collectors into social outcasts. Now it is not politically correct to have certain types of Buddhas, ivory, human bone, feathers, sea shells, shark’s teeth, items of a secret/sacred nature, the list is endless and is only going to get a whole lot worse.
Besides, artifacts are much safer kept in western museums and collections than most third world countries of origin.
“How do you know these 100 artifacts were ‘stolen’?” – That’s the wrong question to start with. The fact that the majority of these artifacts are outside of their place of origin is already the red flag, and museums should be asking, “How do we know these artefacts were not stolen?” Artefacts that do not have a clear history cannot be assumed to be clear or legitimately acquired, and as we have seen in the case of Douglas Latchford even artefacts that were acquired “legally” had their origins and documentation falsified. The only people who gets to say what should happen to their artefacts are the people whose culture it came from – in this case it is very clearly the Cambodians.