JakartaPost-Nov 17
Indonesia is set to receive several cultural artifacts repatriated from the United States, including a historical bronze statue that has been kept at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) since the early 1990s. In a meeting with the Indonesian Consulate General in New York at the Culture Ministry office in Jakarta on Friday, Culture Minister Fadli Zon said an upcoming repatriation of Indonesia’s cultural objects from the US is in order. “We will soon receive a number of repatriated cultural heritage objects from the United States,” Fadli said in a press release, without revealing when the repatriation will take place. At least six artifacts are currently being processed to be sent home to Indonesia, including two arca, or bronze statues, from the era of the Sriwijaya ancient kingdom, which was located in what we now know as Palembang, South Sumatra, as well as a handful of terracotta artifacts. One artifact highlighted in the repatriation process is the Surocolo statue, a small bronze statue originating from 10th-century Indonesia that has been housed in the collection of the Met. The statue is known to be part of an ensemble of Buddhist esoteric deities accidentally found by a local farmer in 1976 in a small village of Surocolo in Yogyakarta, the Indonesian Consulate General in New York said on its social media account. It was reportedly donated to the Met in 1994. “The director of the Met visited the Indonesian Consulate General, then Borobudur, to confirm the origins of the Surocolo statue himself. This has opened a new dialogue and the possibility of further returns from their collection,” consul general Winanto Adi said, as quoted from the press release from the Culture Ministry. Read more at: https://www.thejakartapost.com/indonesia/2025/11/17/indonesia-to-receive-repatriated-artifacts-from-us.html.
