Cultural Restitution
December 1, 2019
SOUTH KOREA
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South Korea
Updated January 2020
Below is a schedule of successful restitutions made by South Korea to a country or community of source. Entries are updated regularly.
April 2017
The Republic of Korea return 11 dinosaur fossils, including those of Tarbosaurus Bataar, smuggled into the country from Mongolia - the first time the Korean Government has returned stolen foreign cultural property to the owner country at government level
January 2017
A 14th cent Buddhist statue, stolen from a Japanese temple in 2012, is to remain in South Korea following a long-running dispute over its ownership
https://culturalpropertynews.org/court-says-statue-600-years-in-japan-should-go-to-to-korean-temple/
July 2015
South Korea returns an 8th cent bronze statue of the Tathagata Buddha, one of two statues stolen from Japan in 2012, to the island city of Tsushima in Japan's Nagasaki Prefecture
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A rare and important 19th century gold hairpin once owned by Empress Tiruwork, wife of the Abyssinian Emperor Tewodros II, will be returning to Ethiopia following negotiations by the Royal Ethiopian Trust with the Rome auction house Bertolami Fine Art
In 2022 several western collections made a decision to transfer ownership of their Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. Reassured by progress on the construction of a major new facility in Benin City, they understood their artefacts would be exhibited in a new museum to be called the Edo Museum of West African Art