Khmer artefacts return to Cambodia.

BAHN, PAUL G.

From 1-31 March 2000, the National Museum of Bangkok, Thailand, held a special exhibition entitled `Khmer Artifacts Return to Cambodia'. It displayed, in the open air (FIGURE 1), some reconstructed bas-reliefs from the 12th-century AD Cambodian temple of Banteay Chmar, which were discovered as blocks in a van on Thai territory last year. The temple is located in northwest Cambodia, and has often been mentioned and illustrated in the literature, so that its carvings are well known.

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Khmer artefacts have been pirated for centuries, often being transferred to Thai antique shops and private collections, and the trade continues despite the passing of laws in Thailand in the 1990s to protect cultural heritage. Since 1993, the Thai Fine Arts department has recovered 122 Khmer artefacts illegally removed from Cambodia, most notably 118 fragments from the Banteay Chmar sanctuary including bas-reliefs of six-armed and ten-armed beings (FIGURE 2), and a priceless stone inscription describing the battle between the Khmers and the Chams in the reign of King Jayavarman VII. The Thai government announced that it would return all this material, together with four sandstone sculptures (FIGURE 3), to Cambodia after the exhibition, as `a sincere gesture of humanity to a neighbouring country, to preserve its cultural heritage which is central to the civilization of Southeast Asia'.

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PAUL G. BAHN, 428 Anlaby Road, Hull HU3 6UP, England.