Dozens of priceless royal jewellery that belonged in Cambodia have been, for years, stashed in boxes near London – until the daughter of the disgraced art dealer who stole them agreed to return them to their country of origin. The southeast Asian country’s Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts announced this week that the jewellery – all 77 pieces of it – had been successfully returned.
The crown jewels were among the collection.
They were handed over by the family of Douglas Latchford – a British antiquities dealer and leading scholar on Khmer art.
In 2019, Mr Latchford was accused by US authorities of trafficking artifacts looted from Cambodia.
However, he died in 2020 with the charges still pending.
His daughter then agreed to return all the Khmer antiquities she had inherited from her father – which also extended to over 100 statues and carvings.
The collection is so crucial to Cambodian culture that its national museum in Phnom Penh is being expanded for the express purpose of housing it.
The trove includes several crowns, necklaces, bracelets, belts, earrings, armbands and amulets, according to the culture ministry.
Due to the pieces being looted, it is unclear what their original purpose was – with one gold bowl tipped to have possibly been used by a king to eat rice.
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The items are thought to hail either from the Angkorian period, which began in the 9th century, or earlier.
The 77-piece royal collection is expected to go on display at Cambodia’s national museum by springtime, with many of the artifacts having never been seen before by the public.
The artifacts’ return comes as the Cambodian government increases its efforts to reclaim many relics that were taken from temples and archeological sites. Western museums are facing growing calls to give back treasures taken illicitly or by force.
Lawyer Bradley Gordon, who advises the country’s culture ministry and is leading Cambodia’s efforts to repatriate stolen artifacts, told CNN it was an “astonishing collection”, saying they were “prized possessions, from what I understand.”
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He added Cambodia considers all items recovered from Latchford’s collection, and any he sold to others, to be stolen.
He said: “Cambodia never gave export license for any of this, so in our view it’s stolen and it needs to come home.”
In August 2022, New York officials returned 30 cultural artefacts to Cambodia, including a 10th-century Khmer sculptural “masterpiece,” that had been plundered and illegally sold to private collectors and a US museum.
Mr Gordon said he expects more items, number in the hundreds in total, to be returned – possibly reaching 300 objects.
