Posted on 10/28/2020 8:51:06 AM PDT by BenLurkin
The U.S. government is demanding a San Francisco museum give up claims to two religious relics allegedly stolen from Thailand, the U.S. attorney’s office announced Tuesday.
A civil complaint filed Monday in federal court seeks the forfeiture of two 1,500-pound hand-carved sandstone lintels the government contends were looted from ancient temples in Thailand.
The lawsuit says the items illegally made their way to a private collector in the United States and were donated to the city- and county-owned collection of the Asian Art Museum.
Thailand began investigating after the Thai consulate general in Los Angeles saw the lintels on display when he visited the museum in 2016, according to the suit.
The museum said one lintel is from Nong Hong Temple and dates to 1000-1080 AD. The other is from Khao Lon Temple and dates to 975-1025 AD.
(Excerpt) Read more at ktla.com ...
Thailand?.........................
For 1,500 lbs, those wall hangers look pretty sketchy...
Acquired in the 1960s, do this is fairly timely.
The government claiming them is the same government that existed the artifacts were, umm, ‘acquired.’
Evidence seems to indicate that acquisition didn’t follow government rules.
Sounds like a good case to me.
Too bad a lot more stuff wasn’t “looted” from Syria. Keeping everything in one place guarantees no one will see it and it will eventually be destroyed.
Thought it said Intel at first. "You give back chip or it curse you with blue screen of death!"
Thanks BenLurkin. Imagine, an entire country based on men's neckware.
Siamese twins lintels
Send in federal troops with bayonets fixed! Ruin San Francisco.
How about we give Thailand not just the lintels but the whole city?
Yeah, they’d tell us to keep the lintels.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
