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

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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July 3, 2025
“Would be nice to have a more frank discussion about how objects are collected for the Museum. Saying ‘Donated’ is not enough”
June 17, 2025
Last week, a delegation of Naga people signed a declaration that will lead to the return of 41 Naga ancestral remains currently held in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford
May 24, 2025
Village leaders at San Benito Poité in southern Belize, formerly British Honduras, are claiming that an important collection of artefacts removed from the ancient city of Pusilha is not the lawful property of the British Museum