Advertisement
Indonesia cheers Dutch return of artefacts, but fears of heists, preservation persist amid lax museum security
- Experts query the readiness, safety of Indonesia’s museums as Western nations come under rising pressure to return the spoils of colonial rule
- Since 1961, Indonesia has recorded 23 thefts from museums – with 95 per cent of a museum’s collection stolen in the last such heist in 2022
Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
2
Looted statues, gems and jewels from Indonesia kept for over a century in former colonial ruler the Netherlands have arrived in Jakarta and are being catalogued at the city’s National Museum, as experts express concerns over how the Southeast Asian nation will manage the deluge of artefacts given its limited museum infrastructure and history of heists.
The colonial-era spoils include the Lombok Treasury, an exquisite haul of 335 gems and jewellery pieces, 132 items from the Balinese Pita Maha collection, and four volcanic stone statues formerly installed in the Hindu Singasari temple in Malang, East Java.
The artefacts, returned under a deal timed with Indonesia’s 78th independence anniversary, will be kept at Jakarta’s National Museum, although the regions they originated from are lobbying for them back.
“There are different grades of museums in Indonesia, but unfortunately the best ones tend to be in Jakarta,” said Adrian Perkasa, Indonesian research fellow at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) and the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
Indonesian museums, especially in the provinces, are ill-equipped to handle the relics arriving from the Netherlands, he said.
Advertisement