Enlarge Courtesy of the U.S. Attorney's Office The
United States and Cambodia are locked in a legal battle with the
auction house Sotheby's over this 1,000-year-old statue of the Hindu
warrior Duryodhana that may have been looted from the Cambodian temple
complex at Koh Ker.
The governments of Cambodia and the United
States are locked in a legal battle with the auction house Sotheby's
over a thousand-year-old statue. The two governments say the statue was
looted from a temple of the ancient Khmer empire. Sotheby's says this
can't be proved, and a court in New York will decide on the matter soon.
The case could affect how collectors and museums acquire artifacts, and how governments recover lost national treasures.
The
modern battle has its roots in an ancient power struggle. The statues
come from Koh Ker in northern Cambodia's Preah Vihear province, along
the border with Thailand.
In A.D. 921, with
the Khmer empire in control of most of mainland Southeast Asia, a
succession struggle broke out. King Jayavarman IV moved the imperial
capital to Koh Ker, about 50 miles northeast of its traditional base at
Angkor Wat.
The temple complex at Angkor Wat
has become more famous among tourists, but the buildings at Koh Ker are
older and bigger, and required tens of thousands of engineers and
laborers to build.
Jayavarman IV died some
two decades later. His successor moved the capital back to Angkor Wat,
and the jungle swallowed Koh Ker. Trees toppled giant stone pillars,
vines crept over carved floral decorations, and moss covered everything.
During
Cambodia's three decades of civil war, the area was peppered with
landmines, which were only cleared within the past decade. Now, the
buildings are open to the public, though less heavily visited than
Angkor Wat.
Matching Pedestals For The Statues
Behind
the Prasat Chen temple at Koh Ker, Cambodian archaeologist Phin Samnang
descends into a small pit and pulls away a plastic tarpaulin. He points
to a group of stone blocks.
Enlarge Anthony Kuhn/NPR King
Jayavarman IV built this pyramid-shaped monument at the center of his
capital at Koh Ker in northern Cambodia in the 10th century. The ruler
of the Khmer empire died two decades later, and the capital was
abandoned and swallowed by the jungle.
"This is the site of the statue that is now in
the auction house in America," he says. "Two pedestals were found here.
And there were seven more around them."
The
life-size statues depict a scene from the Hindu epic the Mahabarata. The
warriors Duryodhana and Bhima face off in battle, armed with maces and
wearing elaborate ornaments on their heads and arms. Each of the
warriors is accompanied by several followers, who watch the combat.
The
iconography is Hindu, which was the official religion during Jayavarman
IV's reign, but Phin Samnang says the statues' facial features are
clearly Khmer.
Phin Samnang says computer
modeling has shown that the missing statues fit the pedestals perfectly
and, he says, proves that the statues were looted from this temple.
"We
must not stay silent. We must reclaim the statues by any and all legal
means," he says. "If we don't take action, it means we do not love our
antiquities which have been looted and taken overseas."
Enlarge Anthony Kuhn/NPR Archaeologist
Phin Samnang, 29, surveys the ruins of Prasat Chen temple at Koh Ker.
He says that unlike in earlier periods, Cambodia now has the means and
duty to reclaim its priceless lost antiquities.
Anne LeMaistre is the Phnom Penh-based
representative for the U.N.'s cultural organization, UNESCO, and adviser
to the Cambodian government on the Koh Ker statues. She says that while
much of Angkor-era artwork was carved on walls in the form of bas
reliefs, Duryodhana and the other statues literally leap out at you.
"You
can see he has three little toes which are outside of the pedestal,
which is in fact an incredible novelty in terms of sculpture," LeMaistre
says. "Even the Greeks, I think, were not conceiving this freedom of
sculpting things out of the frame."
Failed Negotiations
Sotheby's
canceled the auction of the statue last year after Cambodia's
government objected. A year of negotiations between the two sides failed
to produce a compromise. Sotheby's has filed a motion to prevent
seizure of the statue.
The auction house
declined to be interviewed for this report, but provided documents
arguing that Cambodia has no physical evidence of exactly when over the
past 1,000 years the statue was looted. There have been multiple periods
of upheaval involving both foreign invaders and domestic conflict, in
which looting occurred.
But LeMaistre argues that there is at least clear circumstantial evidence of when these particular statues left the country.
Enlarge Anthony Kuhn/NPR Cambodian
officials say a kneeling figure now in New York's Metropolitan Museum
of Art once sat on this pedestal. The statue was one of a group of nine
depicting a scene from the Hindu epic the Mahabarata.
"There is evidence that all this looting
occurred at the end of the '60s," she says. "The Duryodhana [statue] was
looted from Cambodia because this site was looted at the same time, and
several pieces were found on the art market at the same time, for the
first time."
The two statues, of Duryodhana and Bhima, appeared on the international art market in the mid-1970s.
The
Cambodian government has now asked for the return of the matching Bhima
statue, which is in the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, Calif.
In
addition, two kneeling figures from the Koh Ker group are in the
Metropolitan Museum in New York. Sotheby's argues that for decades,
Cambodia made no mention of any of these statues, thereby forfeiting any
claim of ownership.
Cambodia Pursues Claims
Soeun
Kong, a Cambodian official in charge of the antiquities at Koh Ker,
says Cambodia began to pursue the artworks as soon as it could.
"Our
country is just recovering from civil war, and most of our Angkor-era
temples are deep in the jungle," Soeun Kong says. "Some remain to be
discovered. Recently, we have received information that some sculptures
have appeared on the market, and we are working to get them back."
Whoever
prevails in court, the trends are clear: Archaeologically rich
countries like Cambodia are becoming more assertive about reclaiming
lost artifacts.
Museums argue that they are
custodians of the world's cultural heritage, but they are increasingly
careful to avoid buying artworks that may have been looted. These issues
are part of a larger debate about the rights to define cultural
heritage and own cultural property.
What is
clear is that, a century ago, there was hardly any market for Khmer art.
Today, foreign collectors see it as valuable, and many Cambodians see
it as priceless.
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