Museum Returns Sculptures to Nepal

KATHMANDU, NEPAL—The Himalayan Times reports that representatives from New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art handed over two sculptures to officials from Nepal’s Department of Archaeology and the Consulate General of Nepal. The sculptures disappeared from Nepal in the 1980s. The first, a stone slab carved in the twelfth or thirteenth century, depicts the god Shiva and goddess Parvati. The second statue, of the Buddha, dates to the eleventh or twelfth century. The statues have been sent to the National Museum in Chauni, but there are plans to return them to their original locations. “We hope the move will discourage illegal trade of archaeological and historical artifacts,” Madhu Marasini, consul general of Nepal, said in his praise of the Metropolitan Museum. For more on archaeology in Nepal, go to “Buddhism, in the Beginning.”