U.S. Repatriates Two Khmer Statues to Cambodia

News April 7, 2020

(U.S. Embassy Phnom Penh)
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Cambodia Khmer Torso
(U.S. Embassy Phnom Penh)

PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA—The Phnom Penh Post reports that the United States handed over two Cambodian statues seized by Homeland Security Investigation at a ceremony held at Cambodia’s National Museum. The first sculpture, recovered in San Francisco in 2017, is a sandstone Khmer torso dated to the eleventh century A.D. The figure is shown wearing a folded and draped piece of long, rectangular cloth known as a sompot on its lower body. The second statue, recovered in Los Angeles in 2005, depicts the torso of an unidentified deity carved from grey sandstone. According to a statement released by the U.S. Embassy in Cambodia, the statues were repatriated under a memorandum of understanding signed by the governments of the two countries that is intended to reduce the plundering of Cambodia’s heritage. To read about the sacred Khmer site of Phnom Kulen, go to "Letter from Cambodia: Storied Landscape."

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