Thailand museum welcomes 1,000-year-old artefacts returned from US

Bangkok: Thailand held a welcoming ceremony at a Bangkok museum on Monday to mark the return of two ancient hand-carved artefacts that were stolen from Thailand and smuggled to US during Vietnam War.

They were greeted with a fanfare of traditional dancers and an elaborate worship ceremony.

The temple support beams, which were returned on Friday, feature Hindu deities Indra, Yama. For decades, the 1,000-year-old artefacts were on display in a museum in San Francisco.

Thanking US authorities and the Thai Foreign Affairs Ministry, said,  “These two lintels are evidence of our rich and prosperous history dating back many centuries ago.”

The lintels have features of mirror famed Cambodian temples, showing the influence and reach of the ancient Khmer Kingdom,  and are believed to have been stolen out of Thailand between 1958 and 1969.