Metropolitan Museum Will Return a Pair of Statues to Cambodia

One of the "Kneeling Attendants."(Photo: The New York Times)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York said today that it will return to Cambodia two 10th-century Koh Ker ancient Khmer statues of “Kneeling Attendants” which donated  as separate gifts between 1987 and 1992 and on public display in its Asian Wing for nearly 20 years. The Met recently came into possession of new documentary research that was not available to the Museum when the objects were acquired.

The decision follows a recent meeting in Phnom Penh between senior museum officials and representatives of the Cambodian government.

Thomas P. Campbell, the museum’s director, said the decision came after the Cambodians offered evidence that the works had been improperly removed from the Koh Ker temple complex with photographs of the statue’s broken-off bases, which were left behind at the site.