CNN
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The US is returning 297 history-spanning antiquities stolen or smuggled from India, many courting again centuries.
Marking the handover, President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi posed for a photograph in entrance of a number of of the artifacts, throughout a latest assembly between the 2 leaders.
In July, the US and India signed an agreement to defend cultural property by stopping unlawful trades and streamline the method to return stolen antiquities again to India.
The relics — most of that are terracotta artifacts from Eastern India — are anticipated to be repatriated “shortly,” in accordance to the Indian authorities in a statement on Saturday.
The timing coincided with Modi’s go to to Biden’s hometown in Wilmington, Delaware, the place the president held a Quad summit over the weekend, aimed toward strengthening the shut alliance between the US and India, Japan and Australia.
“Prime Minister (Modi) thanked President Biden for his support in the return of these artifacts,” the India’s Ministry of External Affairs stated.
Modi additionally famous the relics “were not just part of India’s historical material culture but formed the inner core of its civilization and consciousness,” in accordance to the assertion.
The artifacts, starting from sculptures to vases, belong to a interval spanning from 2000 BCE to 1900 CE. Some are fabricated from stone, steel, wooden and ivory.
Among the exhibited objects was a sculpture of Apsara, a celestial performer in Hindu and Buddhist mythologies, fabricated from sandstone from tenth to eleventh century CE in Central India. Wearing decorative headgear and a girdle with tassels, she strikes a posture discovered generally in Indian classical dance.
A fraction of a stone sculpture carved with a turbaned man alongside two ladies and an elephant rider was additionally showcased.
India has confronted an uphill battle in defending its priceless cultural treasures from looters, although it has been making headway in recent times.
In 2022, the US returned 307 stolen treasures to India as a part of a 15-year investigation into worldwide trafficking networks. More than three-quarters of these repatriated objects, which have an estimated worth of over $4 million, had been linked to the disgraced New York artwork seller Subhash Kapoor, who was sentenced to 10 years in jail by an Indian court docket over smuggling offenses.
The US has returned 578 items of cultural artifacts to India since 2016, repatriations which in recent times have “become an important aspect of India-US cultural understanding and exchange,” in accordance to the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.
The US State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs has not instantly responded to CNN’s request for remark.
