Most of the 47 items are from Baan Chiang and include earthenware, tools and carving utensils. The ages of items range between 1,800 and 4,000 years with 19 of them previously held by a US citizen and 27 held by a Thai residing in the US.
The artifacts were returned through the work of the Thai Historical Artifacts Retrieval Commission, which is a joint body of officials from the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The haul was second such success after the commission secured the return of an initial 12 items from the US in October 2018.
Minister of Culture Weera Rojpojanarat chaired a ceremony to receive the artifacts, remarking that efforts will continue to bring all of Thailand’s historical items home.
The Thai Fine Arts Department is to catalog the items and place them on an inventory of state property as well as carry out maintenance and restoration where needed. The artifacts will be kept at the National Museum’s central archive in Pathumthani and will only be considered for display after thorough study.
