Christoph Heinrich joined Cambodian dignitaries at the handover session in which jasmine garlands were festooned on the Torso of Rama. Yim Nolson, a spokesperson for the government, stated afterwards that the Cambodian people were thrilled about welcoming the statue back.
The torso is 158-centimetres tall. Its head and arms are still unaccounted for and the nation’s Culture Ministry has appealed to museums and private collectors to return these and other relics or artefacts that were looted in the 1970s civil war.
The Torso of Rama disappeared from Koh Ker Temple and turned up in a New York gallery a few years later. Curators at Denver Art Museum said they bought the statue from the gallery in 1986 and did not realise it was a stolen item until 2013.
The statue was on a list of looted artefacts circulated by Cambodia that year. The museum and Cambodian fine arts specialists collaborated on verifying that it was actually the missing relic.
The return of Rama’s Torso follows that of Harihara’s statue head in January. This piece was stolen by French colonialists in the 1880s. The image of Rama’s Torso comes courtesy of Cambodia Daily.
Looted Cambodian Hindu god statue returned by Denver museum
News in Asia
A 1,000-year-old statue of a Hindu deity which vanished during Cambodia’s civil war four decades ago has landed back in Phnom Penh. The Denver Art Museum’s director accompanied the Torso of Rama back to its homeland and presided over a formal handover in the Cambodian capital city.