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.
Ppl arguing they’ll be taken care of better in western museums is nothing but blatant racism. Americans would pop a testicle if we had to fly across the Atlantic to see the bill of rights.
And some of these artifacts are much more meaningful to those foreign countries than the bill of rights. A lot of stuff in there has huge sentimental value to the families in there as it literally represents their ancestors to them.
John Oliver had a great episode about Museums where he explains all of this.
