Sunday 17 December 2023

Searching for the rest of Cambodia's stolen crown jewels



In addition to the report on the statues: 
60 MINUTES OVERTIME  by Will Croxton
Searching for Cambodia's stolen crown jewels
60-minutes-overtime December 17, 2023

In the film, Brad Gordon tells of what he learnt from former looter ("Lion") who'd been working for Douglas Latchford, a British antiquities dealer and leading scholar on Khmer art who in 2019 was accused by US authorities of trafficking artifacts looted from Cambodia. When interviewed about looting of the Temple on Sandak Mountain - Prasat Phnom Sandok (1:50):
"....I said to him "well, what did you find in this area?" He said, "well, I found a jar", "I found a jar of three kilos of jewellery, and it was necklaces, earrings and crowns...",  and I said to him "did you just find one jar, and he said no, he'd found hundreds".
This is presumably the source of a lot of Khmer jewellery that has been on the market (for example this group of items: 'Ancient Artefacts Returned to Cambodia from London', PACHI Saturday 6 May 2017; PACHI  Sunday 3 December 2017, 'Looted ancient gold jewelry returned to Cambodia from Britain';  'Ancient Angkorian jewellery to go on show', PACHI Saturday 6 January 2018). There was never any explanation where the Canadian seller got them, or how they travelled to the UK. 

Claudine Bautze-Picron  Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (2010, 2011) writes: "all my gratefulness goes to the private collectors who welcomed me, allowing me to see and study these jewels, gorgeous testimonies of a remote and lost past.." apparently oblivious to the fact that the past is being "lost" to the looting that enables and is enabled by this very same private collecting.

It seems that Latchford had retained 77 pieces for himself, and they were inherited by his daughter, who ultimately handed them back in February this year, the items include several crowns, necklaces, bracelets, belts, earrings, arm bands and amulets. (David Sanderson, 'Britain returns stolen crown jewels to Cambodia' The Times Feb 20, 2023;  Tara Subramaniam, Oscar Holland, 'Disgraced art dealer’s family returns rare royal jewels to Cambodia', CNN, Thu February 23, 2023; Tom Mashberg, 'Cambodia Says It Has Recovered Looted Gold Jewelry Once Worn by Royals' New York Times Feb. 24 2023). 
Lawyer Bradley Gordon, who advises the country’s culture ministry and is leading Cambodia’s efforts to repatriate stolen artifacts, first saw the jewels last summer when a representative for Latchford’s family took him to a parking lot in the English countryside outside London. There, in the back of a car, sat four boxes containing a collection of Cambodia’s crown jewels.
But if there really were "hundreds of jars", where are the rest? 

Bibliography

Bunker, Emma (2000) Splendour and Sensuality in Angkor. Period Khmer Jewellery. Orientations (Hong Kong). 31/3: 102–113.

Bunker, Emma C.; Latchford, Douglas (2008). Khmer Gold: Gifts for the Gods. Douglas A.J. Latchford. ISBN 978-1-58886-097-2.

Claudine Bautze-Picron Jewels for a King - Part I. Indo-Asiatische Zeitschrift, 2010, 14, pp.42-56. ffhal-00550774f

Claudine Bautze-Picron. Jewels for a King - Part II. Indo-Asiatische Zeitschrift, 2011, 15, pp.41-56. ffhal-00646540f


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