Cambodia’s prime minister recently oversaw the return of 70 precious artifacts to the country from museums and private collectors abroad. The artifacts, including statues symbolically reuniting the Cambodian people with their ancestral heritage, were displayed at the Peace Palace, the government's seat. Many of these pieces were looted during Cambodia's civil war and the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s.
Over the years, Cambodia has seen a positive trend in the repatriation of art and archaeological treasures taken from their homeland. The returned items, which include Hindu and Buddhist masterpieces from the 9th-to-14th-century Angkor period, were acquired through various means such as voluntary returns, negotiations, seizures, and legal proceedings.
