CO-OP
From 5 – 14 January 2024, the CO-OP cohort met in Thailand for the first of its three critical thinking labs. After a night in Bangkok, we set out for Northeast Thailand where we would remain for the next 8 days. After two days of discussion and debate at a hotel in Khao Yai, we […]
Seeing Old Sites Anew: Some Reflections from the First Critical Thinking Lab Read More »
This case study was considered as part of a broader provenancing project. Read the summary and other case studies on the project page. This case study will examine two Khmer lintels donated by Douglas Latchford to the British Museum (BM) in 1971. The lintels raise many unanswered questions. Where did they come from? How did they
Two Ancient Khmer lintels donated by Latchford in 1971 Read More »
This case study was considered as part of a broader provenancing project. Read the summary and other case studies on the project page. This report summarises research undertaken to trace the ownership history and transfer of certain objects in the BM’s Cambodia collection. I have focused on individual objects and groups of objects about which
This case study was considered as part of a broader provenancing project. Read the summary and other case studies on the project page. This statue currently held in the stores of the British Museum (BM), is accessioned as figure (1976,1101.1) [Fig. 1]. The following case study provides insight into provenance issues stemming from the trade of
The Khmer Standing Male Divinity at the British Museum Read More »
Our visit to Ban Sema and the temple of Wat Pho Chai Semaram in Kalasin province, was a late afternoon encounter with familiar signs of merit-making and active temple curation. An orderly layout of ancient sema stones or boundary markers (from the Pali sīmā) framed by Fine Art Department (FAD) panels, identified them as works
Thinking with Sema Stones at the Temple Museum Read More »
In early November 2023, an object-handling activity was conceived as part of the Festival of Social Science, a UK-wide festival led and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council of UK Research and Innovation. The authors managed this object-handling activity titled “Objects on the Move”. It aimed to explain how objects function differently in diverse contexts and why objects were moved and collected.
Talking about Restitution Read More »
In early July 2023, the Netherlands announced a large-scale return to Sri Lanka and Indonesia of state-owned objects from their national museums. To Indonesia, 478 cultural artefacts including the famed Lombok treasure, stolen as war booty in 1894 from a Balinese palace, will be handed over to the National Museum in Jakarta. To Sri Lanka,
Provenancing at work in Indonesia/Sri Lanka returns Read More »
March 17, 2023 marked the return of hundreds of Khmer antiquities from public and private collections abroad. One month prior, a collection of Khmer gold and metal jewellery was brought from the UK to Cambodia, a highly publicized return shining an ever brighter spotlight on the illegal activities of art collector-dealer Douglas Latchford. An official
Cambodia Returns – March 2023 Read More »