PUBLISHED: 21 May 2024 at 18: 22
As a major breakthrough in collaboration between Thailand and the United States, the Ministry of Culture has publicly welcomed the gain of two very valued old objects from an esteemed New York museum.
The 1, 000- season- old artifacts, a bronze monument known as” Golden Boy” and a” Kneeling Woman” artwork arrived on Monday and were formally handed over at a service in Bangkok on Tuesday.
They had previously been on display at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art ( MET ) and had been returned as part of the Met’s cultural initiative, which was launched last year. The Met is dedicated to responsible antiquities collection and to the preservation of the country’s cultural heritage.
Yupha Taweewattanakitborvon, government lasting secretary, expressed her gratitude for the Met’s effort to restore Thailand’s cultural heritage during a speech at the ceremony. The Met reached the agency’s Department of Fine Arts in December of last year to hand over the two figures.
The government on May 14 ordered the government to take them up after the office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Met had carefully collaborated in making arrangements.
The two objects, according to Culture Minister Sudawan Wangsupakitkosol, are thought to be the house of all Thai citizens. They were recognized as a major part of the country’s cultural heritage and deserving of great pleasure because they provided proof of Thailand’s wealth over a thousand years ago.
” We are very appreciative of the Met’s efforts in bringing them back to their home country. They are crucial in presenting the world community with our ethnic identity and our level of skill in casting and crafting. Interestingly, the Met has emphasized ownership of constitutional origin of relics and firmed our common relations”, she said.
The exchange of the monuments and the most new Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Met and Thailand, according to Met member John Guy, a member of the Committee for Repatriation of Thai Antiquities from Foreign Countries.
One of the most significant religious carvings of its kind, he said, was the position statue of the Hindu god Shiva, a standing number known as Golden Boy.
Its value was merely strengthened by the fact that it was almost entirely preserved.
The Met learned that” Golden Boy” and” Kneeling Woman” had been illegally smuggled out of Thailand. Thus, the gallery removed them from its variety of treasures and proposed their returning to Thailand.
The two old monuments, which have been dated to the 11th century, are now on watch at the Lopburi Room, Mahasurasinghanat Building of the National Museum. A big bronze monument that is found at Prasat Sa Kamphaeng Yai in Si Sa Ket state and has connections to the Golden Boy is being displayed alongside them.