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Bangkok, Thailand – Over a number of years within the mid-Sixties, the crumbling ruins of an historical temple in northeast Thailand have been picked clear by native looters.

Probably lots of of centuries-old statues that have been lengthy buried beneath the delicate, verdant grounds across the temple have been stolen.

To this present day, all of the identified artefacts from the pillaging spree, collectively referred to as the Prakhon Chai hoard, sit scattered hundreds of miles away in museums and collections throughout the US, Europe and Australia.

In a matter of weeks, although, the primary of these statues will start their journey residence to Thailand.

The acquisitions committee of San Francisco’s Asian Artwork Museum beneficial the discharge final 12 months of 4 bronze statues from the hoard, which had been held in its assortment for the reason that late Sixties.

San Francisco metropolis’s Asian Artwork Fee, which manages the museum, then permitted the proposal on April 22, formally setting the items free.

Some six a long time after the late British antiquities seller Douglas Latchford is suspected of spiriting the statues overseas, they’re anticipated to reach again in Thailand inside a month or two.

“We’re the righteous homeowners,” Disapong Netlomwong, senior curator for the Workplace of Nationwide Museums at Thailand’s Positive Arts Division, instructed Al Jazeera.

“It’s one thing that our ancestors … have made, and it must be exhibited right here to point out the civilisation and the assumption of the individuals,” mentioned Disapong, who additionally serves on Thailand’s Committee for the Repatriation of Stolen Artefacts.

The upcoming return of the statues is the newest victory in Thailand’s quest to reclaim its pilfered heritage.

Their homecoming additionally exemplifies the efforts of nations the world over to retrieve items of their very own stolen historical past that also sit in show circumstances and within the vaults of among the West’s high museums.

From Thai temples to the Acropolis in Athens

Latchford, a high-profile Asian artwork seller who got here to settle in Bangkok and lived there till his dying in 2020 at 88 years of age, is believed to have earned a fortune from public sale homes, personal collectors and museums all over the world who acquired his smuggled historical artefacts from Thailand and neighbouring Cambodia.

In 2021, Latchford’s daughter, Nawapan Kriangsak, agreed to return her late father’s personal assortment of greater than 100 artefacts, valued at greater than $50m, to Cambodia.

Although by no means convicted throughout his lifetime, Latchford was charged with falsifying transport data, wire fraud and a bunch of different crimes associated to antiquities smuggling by a US federal grand jury in 2019.

He died the next 12 months, earlier than the case towards him might go to trial.

In 2023 the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork in New York agreed to return 16 items tied to Latchford’s smuggling community to Cambodia and Thailand.

San Francisco’s Asian Artwork Museum has additionally beforehand returned items to Thailand – two intricately carved stone lintels taken from a pair of temples courting again to the tenth and eleventh centuries, in 2021.

Whereas Thailand and Cambodia have not too long ago fared comparatively properly in efforts to reclaim their looted heritage from US museum collections, Greece has not had such luck with the British Museum in London.

Maybe no case of looted antiquities has grabbed extra information headlines than that of the so-called “Elgin Marbles”.

The two,500-year-old friezes, identified additionally because the Parthenon Marbles, have been hacked off the enduring Acropolis in Athens within the early 1800s by brokers of Lord Elgin, Britain’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, which managed Greece at the moment.

Elgin claimed he took the marbles with the permission of the Ottomans after which bought them in 1816 to the British Museum in London, the place they continue to be.

Greece has been demanding the return of the artefacts for the reason that nation’s declaration of independence in 1832 and despatched an official request to the museum in 1983, in line with the nongovernmental Hellenic Institute of Cultural Diplomacy.

“Regardless of all these efforts, the British authorities has not deviated from its positions through the years, legally contemplating the Parthenon marbles to belong to Britain. They’ve even handed legal guidelines to forestall the return of cultural artefacts,” the institute mentioned.

‘Colonialism continues to be alive and properly’

Tess Davis, government director of the Antiquities Coalition, a Washington-based nonprofit campaigning towards the illicit commerce of historical artwork and artefacts, mentioned that “colonialism continues to be alive and properly in components of the artwork world”.

“There’s a mistaken assumption by some establishments that they’re higher carers, homeowners, custodians of those cultural objects,” Davis instructed Al Jazeera.

However Davis, who has labored on Cambodia’s repatriation claims with US museums, says the “custodians” defence has lengthy been debunked.

“These antiquities have been cared for by [their] communities for hundreds of years, in some circumstances for millennia, earlier than there was … a market demand for them, resulting in their looting and trafficking, however we nonetheless do see resistance,” she mentioned.

Brad Gordon, a lawyer representing the Cambodian authorities in its ongoing repatriation of stolen artefacts, has heard museums make all types of claims to defend retaining items that must be returned to their rightful homelands.

Excuses from museums embody claiming that they don’t seem to be positive the place items originated from; that contested gadgets have been acquired earlier than legal guidelines banned their smuggling; that home legal guidelines block their repatriation, or that the traditional items deserve a extra world viewers than they’d obtain of their residence nation.

Nonetheless, none of these arguments ought to maintain a stolen piece from coming residence, Gordon mentioned.

“If we consider the article is stolen and the nation of origin needs for it to come back residence, then the artefact must be returned,” he mentioned.

Outdated attitudes have began breaking down although, and extra looted artefacts are beginning to discover their means again to their origins.

“There’s undoubtedly a rising pattern towards doing the precise factor on this space, and … I hope that extra museums comply with the Asian Artwork Museum’s instance. We’ve come a good distance, however there’s nonetheless a protracted option to go,” Davis mentioned.

A lot of the progress, Davis believes, is all the way down to rising media protection of stolen antiquities and public consciousness of the issue within the West, which has positioned mounting strain on museums to do the precise factor.

In 2022, the favored US comedy present Final Week Tonight with John Oliver devoted a complete episode to the subject. As Oliver mentioned, for those who go to Greece and go to the Acropolis you would possibly discover “some odd particulars”, similar to sections lacking from sculptures – which at the moment are in Britain.

“Truthfully, in case you are ever in search of a lacking artefact, 9 instances out of 10 it’s within the British Museum,” Oliver quips.

Gordon additionally believes a generational shift in considering is at play amongst those that as soon as trafficked within the cultural heritage of different international locations.

“For instance, the youngsters of many collectors, as soon as they’re conscious of the information of how the artefacts have been faraway from the nation of origin, need their dad and mom to return them,” he mentioned.

Proof of the previous

The 4 bronze statues the San Francisco museum will quickly be returning to Thailand date again to the seventh and ninth centuries.

Thai archaeologist Tanongsak Hanwong mentioned that interval locations them squarely within the Dvaravati civilisation, which dominated northeast Thailand, earlier than the peak of the Khmer empire that will construct the towering spires of Angkor Wat in present-day Cambodia and are available to beat a lot of the encompassing area centuries later.

Three of the slender, mottled figures, one practically a metre tall (3.2 toes), depict Bodhisattva – Buddhist adherents on the trail to nirvana – and the opposite the Buddha himself in a large, flowing gown.

Tanongsak, who introduced the 4 items within the San Francisco assortment to the eye of Thailand’s stolen artefacts repatriation committee in 2017, mentioned they and the remainder of the Prakhon Chai hoard are priceless proof of Thailand’s Buddhist roots at a time when a lot of the area was nonetheless Hindu.

“The truth that we wouldn’t have any Prakhon Chai bronzes on show anyplace [in Thailand], within the nationwide museum or native museums by any means, it means we wouldn’t have any proof of the Buddhist historical past of that interval in any respect, and that’s unusual,” he mentioned.

The Positive Arts Division first wrote to San Francisco’s Asian Artwork Museum in regards to the statues’ illicit provenance in 2019, however began to make progress on having them returned solely when the US Division of Homeland Safety bought concerned on Thailand’s behalf.

Robert Mintz, the museum’s chief curator, mentioned employees might discover no proof that the statues had been trafficked in their very own data.

However they have been satisfied that they had been looted and smuggled out of Thailand – and of Latchford’s involvement – as soon as Homeland Safety supplied proof, with the assistance of Thai researchers.

“As soon as that proof was offered and so they heard it, their feeling was the suitable place for these could be again in Thailand,” Mintz mentioned of the museum’s employees and acquisition committee.

‘Pull again the curtain’

The San Francisco Asian Artwork Museum went a step additional when it lastly resolved to return the 4 statues to Thailand.

It additionally staged a particular exhibit across the items to spotlight the very questions the expertise had raised relating to the theft of antiquities.

The exhibition – Transferring Objects: Studying from Native and World Communities – ran in San Francisco from November to March.

“Considered one of our objectives was to attempt to point out to the visiting public to the museum how essential it’s to look traditionally at the place artworks have come from,” Mintz mentioned.

“To drag again the curtain a bit, to say, this stuff do exist inside American collections and now could be the time to deal with challenges that emerge from previous gathering observe,” he mentioned.

Mintz says Homeland Safety has requested the Asian Artwork Museum to look into the provenance of not less than one other 10 items in its assortment that seemingly got here from Thailand.

Tess Davis, of the Antiquities Coalition marketing campaign group, mentioned the exhibition was a really uncommon, and welcome, transfer for a museum within the technique of giving up looted artefacts.

In Thailand, Disapong and Tanongsak say the Asian Artwork Museum’s choice to recognise Thailand’s rightful declare to the statues might additionally assist them begin bringing the remainder of the Prakhon Chai hoard residence, together with 14 extra identified items in different museums across the US, and not less than a half-dozen scattered throughout Europe and Australia.

“It’s certainly an excellent instance, as a result of as soon as we will present the world that the Prakhon Chai bronzes have been all exported from Thailand illegally, then most likely, hopefully another museums will see that every one the Prakhon Chai bronzes they’ve have to be returned to Thailand as properly,” Tanongsak mentioned.

There are a number of different artefacts moreover the Prakhon Chai hoard that Thailand can be trying to repatriate from collections all over the world, he mentioned.

Davis mentioned the repatriation of stolen antiquities continues to be being handled by too many with collections as an impediment when it must be seen, because the Asian Artwork Museum has, as a chance.

“It’s a chance to coach the general public,” Davis mentioned.

“It’s a chance to construct bridges with Southeast Asia,” she added, “and I hope different establishments comply with go well with.”