Artifacts are returned to Vietnam by the US Embassy in Vietnam
The Vietnam National Museum of History informed that in 2013, during an investigation in Indiana, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) discovered that a man named Donald Miller (now deceased) who claimed to be a philanthropist and amateur archaeologist, illegally kept a large collection of antiquities and the remains of nearly 500 Native Americans and foreigners.
In 2014, the FBI recovered more than 7,000 objects/artifacts from Donald Miller who then gave up ownership of these objects in cooperation with the FBI, expecting the objects to be returned to their rightful owners.
The FBI published a press release on the FBI's website on February 27, 2019, declaring its desire to return stolen artworks to the communities as well as calling on governments of other countries to send experts to evaluate artifacts kept by the FBI.
After receiving the information, the Vietnamese Embassy in the United States sent to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism a notice about the FBI's request to return a number of antiques identified as of Vietnamese origin.
This year, the Department of International Cooperation under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism May 6 sent a document to the Vietnamese Embassy in the United States and related agencies confirming that the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism received the above antiques in accordance with the provisions of Article 45 of the Law on Cultural Heritage.
Under the authorization of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Vietnamese Embassy in the United States received the number of antiques from the FBI on August 5, 2022.
On August 31, 2022, in Washington DC, a representative of the Embassy of Vietnam in the US handed over the artifacts to the Americas Department which will later give artifacts to the Vietnam National Museum of History.
At the Department of America on October 4, 2022, representatives from the National Museum of History and members of the Antiquities Assessment Council of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism evaluated 10 antiquities including one late Neolithic stone axe; three bronze axes and one ceramic pot made in the Dong Son culture period, three crocodile statues belonging to the first and second centuries AD and two bronze pipes in the 17th and 18th centuries.
