One of the pieces of Cambodian jewelry returned by the estate of antiquities dealer Douglas Latchford Union Youth Federations

 A spectacular collection of never-before-seen gold jewelry has been returned to Cambodia, according to a statement issued this week by the country’s Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts.

Experts believe the artefacts belonged to Angkorian royalty. More than 70 objects from the Khmer Empire, a vast state in Southeast Asia from the 9th to the 15th centuries, are included in the collection, which includes crowns, necklaces, woven gold belts, and exquisite body ornamentation.

According to the New York Times’ Tom Mashberg, Cambodian authorities believe tomb raiders plundered the treasures from ancient temples and burial grounds during the 1970s and 2000s, when the country was plagued by war, genocide, and political instability.

Officials in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, celebrated the return on Monday. Essentially, the country is “getting there.”

back the Angkor Empire’s finest assets,” says Hab Touch, secretary of state of Cambodia’s culture ministry, to the Times.

The relics are from the late Douglas Latchford’s collection, an art trader and expert of ancient Cambodia. Latchford was indicted in the United States the year before his death in 2020, accused of being a “antiquities trafficking kingpin,” as the New York Times puts it; Cambodian officials said he’d been seeking to sell some of the gold items in London soon before the indictment.

According to Sopheng Cheang of the Associated Press, Latchford’s family has agreed to return all Cambodian antiques, including the gold jewelry, as part of a 2020 agreement. Other stone and bronze items were returned by the family in late 2021.

The first Cambodian official to witness the jewelry was Brad Gordon, the leader of Cambodia’s investigative team. During a trip to London last summer, “I was driven to an undisclosed location by a representative of the Latchford family.” “There was a vehicle in the parking lot with four boxes inside,” he recalled to BBC News’ Celia Hatton. “I wanted to cry.” “Wow, the crown jewels of ancient Cambodian civilization packed into four boxes in the back of a car,” I thought.

Cambodian gold is extremely rare—so unusual that evaluating its worth is difficult due to a lack of comparables, specialists told the Times.

It’s so unusual, in fact, that Angkorian jewelry researcher Sonetra Seng had been researching temple carvings to see what the finery would have looked like.

“The jewelry demonstrates that what was on the carvings and what was rumored is true.” “In the past, Cambodia was extremely wealthy,” she says BBC News. “I still don’t believe it.”

Finally returned to Cambodia, the gold artifacts will be shown in Phnom Penh soon.

Hits: 1