Ancient Treasures Heading Home: A Win for Nepal’s Cultural Heritage!

Great news for art lovers and history fans! Two “priceless” wooden artifacts are finally making their way back home to Nepal. These items, which are around 1,000 years old, were returned voluntarily by a private collector in Belgium.

This special return happened thanks to the hard work of Art Recovery International (ARI) and its founder, attorney Chris Marinello, who helped coordinate the hand-over to Nepal’s ambassador in Brussels.

What exactly is returning to Nepal?

The two items are incredible pieces of history that experts say are impossible to put a price tag on:

• An 11th-Century Manuscript Cover: This wooden cover for the Shivadharmottara-shastram was once kept in the National Archives of Nepal before it went missing.
• A 12th-Century Temple Carving: This is a wooden sculpture of a Shalabhanjika Yakshi, a nature spirit shown holding a tree branch to represent fertility. It was originally a roof fixture (a “strut”) at the Itumbaha temple in Kathmandu.

For many years, people thought the temple carving was gone forever. After the temple roof collapsed in 1972, some believed the carvings were crushed in the rubble. Thankfully, this piece was safe and is now heading back where it belongs.

A “No-Drama” Return

Usually, getting stolen art back involves long, expensive legal battles and “shaming” the people who have them. However, this case was different! The Belgian collector—who had owned the pieces since the 1990s—agreed to give them back unconditionally and for free.

Chris Marinello, who worked on this case for free (pro-bono), said this kind act “restored his faith” in the art world. It shows a “sea change” in how people think about returning cultural items to their home countries.

Christopher A. Marinello with Gahendra Rajbhandari, Ambassador of Nepal to Belgium and the Netherlands.
Photo courtesy of Art Recovery International.

Why This is Important

In the 1970s and 80s, many Nepalese artifacts were sold to Western collectors with very little regulation. Today, groups like the Nepal Heritage Recovery Campaign and Lost Arts of Nepal use research and social media to track down these lost treasures. This successful return is a huge win for these advocates and the people of Nepal.

Restoring these artifacts to their home is like finding the missing pieces of a family photo album; while the book still exists without them, it is only when the photos are returned to their original pages that the full story of a family’s history can truly be seen and understood.

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