Current:Home > BackInside the effort to return stolen cultural artifacts to Cambodia-InfoLens
Inside the effort to return stolen cultural artifacts to Cambodia
View Date:2024-12-23 15:13:33
It was Hollywood that turned the temple complex around Angkor Wat into an ultra-famous location, but the Cambodian site is so much more than a movie set. For nine hundred years, it has been a wonder of history, religion and art.
It's also the site of an epic theft. Thousands of people visit the temple every day, but look closely at some of the lesser-known parts of the complex, and you'll notice vital statues of Hindu gods and Buddhas are missing.
In the decades of lawlessness following Cambodia's civil war, which raged from 1967 to 1975 and left hundreds of thousands of people dead, looters raided these sites and made off with the priceless artifacts. Many have ended up in private collections and museums.
American lawyer Brad Gordon said he is on a mission to track down these irreplacable items.
"Many of these statues have spiritual qualities, and the Cambodians regard them as their ancestors," Gordon said."They believe that they're living."
In one case, a man named Toek Tik, code-named Lion, revealed to Gordon and a team of archaeologists that he had stolen a statue from a temple. Lion died in 2021, but first, he led Gordon and the archaeology team to the temple he'd robbed in 1997. There, Gordon and his team found a pedestal and the fragment of a foot, which led the experts to confirm that Lion had stolen the statue "Standing Female Deity."
Now, that statue lives in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
"We have his confirmation, and then we have a French archaeologist who uses 3D imaging. And he's been able to match the body at the Met to the foot that's here," Gordon said. The museum returned two Cambodian sculptures, known as the Kneeling Attendants, in 2013, but Gordon said they're not budging on the matter of "Standing Female Deity."
"The Met has been very difficult," Gordon said. The museum did not respond to a request for comment from CBS News.
Gordon said that he isn't giving up on bringing the statue home.
"At the moment we have been working with the U.S. Government - providing them information on the collection," Gordon explained. "And the U.S. Government has their own investigation going on. If it doesn't work out to our satisfaction, we are confident we can bring civil action."
Other museums and collectors have cooperated, Gordon said, and so the looted pieces have been trickling back to Cambodia. As recently as March, a trove of pieces were returned by a collector in the United Kingdom who'd inherited the pieces and decided giving them back was the only ethical choice.
"Some museums are actually contacting us now and saying, 'Hey, we don't want to have stolen objects. Would you review our collection... If you want any of them back, please just tell us,'" Gordon said.
- In:
- Museums
- Art
- Looting
- Cambodia
Elizabeth Palmer has been a CBS News correspondent since August 2000. She has been based in London since late 2003, after having been based in Moscow (2000-03). Palmer reports primarily for the "CBS Evening News."
veryGood! (156)
Related
- Mike Tyson employs two trainers who 'work like a dream team' as Jake Paul fight nears
- PHOTOS: What it's like to be 72 — the faces (and wisdom) behind the age
- Rihanna performs first full concert in years at billionaire Mukesh Ambani's party for son
- Man charged with attacking police in Times Square, vilified in Trump ad, was misidentified, DA says
- Mississippi rising, Georgia falling in college football NCAA Re-Rank 1-134 after Week 11
- Putting LeBron James' 40,000 points in perspective, from the absurd to the amazing
- The Daily Money: Consumer spending is bound to run out of steam. What then?
- Texas wildfires map: Track latest locations of blazes as dry weather, wind poses threat
- Summer I Turned Pretty's Gavin Casalegno Marries Girlfriend Cheyanne Casalegno
- From spiral galaxies to volcanic eruptions on Jupiter moon, see these amazing space images
Ranking
- Roy Haynes, Grammy-winning jazz drummer, dies at 99: Reports
- Masked shooters kill 4 people and injure 3 at an outdoor party in California, police say
- April's total solar eclipse will bring a surreal silence and confuse all sorts of animals
- Iris Apfel, fashion icon who garnered social media fame in her later years, dies at 102
- Sydney Sweeney Slams Women Empowerment in the Industry as Being Fake
- United Nations Official Says State Repression of Environmental Defenders Threatens Democracy and Human Rights
- MLB's few remaining iron men defy load management mandates: 'Why would I not be playing?'
- A cross-country effort to capture firsthand memories of Woodstock before they fade away
Recommendation
-
Special counsel Smith asks court to pause appeal seeking to revive Trump’s classified documents case
-
Freddie Mercury's London home for sale after being preserved for 30 years: See inside
-
Lawyers who successfully argued Musk pay package was illegal seek $5.6 billion in Tesla stock
-
Kyle Larson again wins at Las Vegas to keep Chevrolet undefeated on NASCAR season
-
Mega Millions winning numbers for November 8 drawing: Jackpot rises to $361 million
-
16 Products That Will Help You Easily Tackle Your Mile-Long List of Chores While Making Them Fun
-
Patient and 3 staffers charged in another patient’s beating death at mental health facility
-
See Millie Bobby Brown in Jon Bon Jovi’s New Family Photo With Fiancé Jake