NEPAL, October 29, 2021 (NY Times): Roshan Mishra recalls standing inside the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Australia, staring into the eyes of a wooden Goddess that he believed was the same artifact that had disappeared nearly 50 years earlier from a local temple in Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley, where he lives. Mishra, director of the Taragaon Museum in Kathmandu, describes that encounter, in 2019, as the event that inspired him to create a digital archive of nearly 3,000 Nepalese artifacts that he believes are being held by museums outside the country. Two years later, the archive that he operates with his wife is at the heart of a citizen-led effort to use the Internet to find the missing Gods and Goddesses, Buddhas and Bodhisattvas that have been looted from Nepal.
Emails now arrive daily from antiquities experts and hobbyists with tips and finds, a process that has helped a small, resource-strapped country persuade some of the world’s most prestigious museums to part with precious artifacts. The Australian museum is now negotiating possible repatriation of the 13th-century wooden Goddess with Nepalese officials, according to a spokesman for the institution. Seven other sculptures have already been returned this year to Nepal because of information provided by the citizen watchdogs and armchair experts who call themselves the Nepal Heritage Recovery Campaign. Officials in Nepal have applauded the efforts of repatriation advocates like Davis who investigate looted objects at a time when the government lacks the resources to pursue every claim.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/29/arts/nepal-looted-antiquities-citizens.html