Dynastic History | National Museum of Cambodia, Phnom Penh — The Angkorian Sculpture That Came Back

George Groslier designed this building in the shape of a Khmer temple. Its foundation stone was laid on 15 August 1917 and it opened on 13 April 1920 as the Musée Albert Sarraut, named for the Governor-General of Indochina, under an administration that was itself moving sculpture off the Angkor sites it was clearing. The museum closed between 1975 and 1979 and reopened on 13 April 1979, fifty-nine years to the day after its inauguration, with a rotten roof and a bat colony in it.

Much of what belongs in these galleries left the country during and after the war years. The British dealer Douglas Latchford was central to that trade. He was indicted in the Southern District of New York in 2019 on wire fraud conspiracy and related charges over a multi-year scheme to sell looted Cambodian antiquities; the indictment was dismissed in September 2020 on his death; and in June 2023 his estate settled a civil forfeiture action for twelve million dollars and a bronze Durga, admitting no liability.

Some of the sculpture has come back. The Metropolitan Museum of Art deaccessioned fourteen Angkorian-period works in December 2023 in connection with that inquiry and announced their transfer to Cambodia on 2 July 2024. The Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts called it a first step in the right direction and said it looked forward to further returns.

On 10 June 2026 the Met handed over two more at the Manhattan District Attorney's office. The two sides describe them differently: the Met lists a mid-seventh-century lintel and a guardian deity of about 921–945, while Cambodia's news agency reports a pre-Angkorian kala lintel and a tenth-century Hiraṇyakaśipu from Prasat Chen at Koh Ker. That is where the count stands as of June 2026.

📸 Cover: the museum's courtyard and galleries, Marcin Konsek, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons