Indonesia demands the Dutch return looted valuables
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A 75 carat diamond on exhibit at the Museum Volkenkunde, Leiden. It was taken, together with 230 kg (507 lb) of gold, 7,000 kg (15,432 lb) of silver and three chests of jewels and precious stones from the royal palace of Lombok after a Dutch invasion in 1894. Only part of the treasure was handed back to Indonesia in 1977. By Takeaway - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0
Indonesia has demanded that the Netherlands return various valuables including collections of jewels and fossils.
The country, once a Dutch colony, has called for hundreds of artworks as well as eight collections, among them the famous fossilised hominid skull of Java Man in addition to valuables looted by troops from a Balinese palace.
A list has been sent to the the Dutch ministry of education, culture and science.
The major piece in the list of demands is the Lombok Treasure, a hoard of precious stones as well as gold and silver jewellery held in the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden.
In 1894, Dutch soldiers took a Balinese royal palace on the island of Lombok where they plundered some 230kg of gold in addition to 7,000kg of silver and countless gemstones.
Most of the treasure was returned in 1977 but some remains, in the words of the museum catalogue, “as silent witnesses of the atrocities of war”.
Indonesia also demands the return of the complete collection of Eugène Dubois, a palaeoanthropologist who excavated about 40,000 fossils from Indonesia during the 19th century.
A spokesman for the Leiden museum objected to the return of the fossils.
“Art treasures are, of course, handmade by people from the local population,” he told the Trouw newspaper. “But the Java skull would not have been found if the Dutchman Dubois had not set up an excavation.”
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