Cambodia’s Bronze Mettle
Wall Street Journal, 15 July 2010

The very name “Angkor” conjures images of towering stone spires, rocks morphing into giant undulating snakes, carved faces bulging from temple walls. But these palaces and temples housed bronzes—idols, ritual objects and decorative statues that took their place within the endless unfolding of stone reliefs and statuary.

In “Gods of Angkor: Bronzes from the National Museum of Cambodia,” the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of Art presents 24 such bronzes along with a dozen others that precede the Angkor period (ninth to mid-15th century). Together they establish that the Khmer people of Cambodia have a rich bronze-casting tradition that produced magnificent works.

Museum gives insight into Bronze Age culture
Viet Nam News, 10 July 2010

More than 600 ancient artefacts from Viet Nam and some other Asian countries are on display at an exhibition at the Can Tho Museum.

The relics, some 2,000 years old, are from collections held by museums and 60 individuals in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta region.

Some are on public display for the first time, including some Lao and Cambodian decorative objects and prayer objects in bronze, silver, stone, and baked clay.

Ancient artefacts on show to herald Hue festival
VOVNews, 04 June 2010

An exhibition of over 300 artefacts dating back six centuries opened at the Revolutionary History Museum in Thua Thien-Hue province on June 3 on the threshold of the 2010 Hue Festival.

The exhibits have been selected from over one million items fishermen had picked up from wreckages of merchant ships coming from China, Thailand and various parts of Vietnam that sunk off the nation’s shores during the 15th -18th centuries.

The artefacts were made of various materials ranging from ceramics to stone, wood and metals with China household utensils making up a majority.

Museum fails to attract the temple tourists
Phnom Penh Post, 14 May 2010

Siem Reap’s million-dollar Preah Norodom Sihanouk-Angkor Museum was inaugurated with great fanfare in November 2007, but its promise of becoming an important tourism add-on never eventuated.

Now the museum itself is in danger of becoming a museum piece. It has a sorry air, it’s dusty and drab, the surrounding gardens are mostly untended, and the building itself is slowly declining into disrepair.

Can a nation afford its own treasure?
Jakarta Post, 11 May 2010

The company proposed to the government its survey and excavation plan, which was issued in February 2004. The recovery process, completed in October 2005, took 18 months.

According to the artifacts’ catalogue, the majority of the ceramics found at the wreck were produced during the Five Dynasties in China’s Zhejiang Province, where an early form of porcelain called the Yue ware were produced.

History enthusiasts protested the government’s plan to auction some of the discovered artifacts.
Even the Cirebon Kasepuhan palace urged the government to cancel the auction and preserve the goods for the sake of the nation’s culture. A protester attending the auction, which took place last week, angrily denounced the process.

However, the National Committee of Excavation and Utilization of Precious Artifacts from Sunken Ships (Pannas BMKT) — a newly formed entity established in 2007 by Presidential Decree — waived off the notion that the country is auctioning away its heritage.

“To be fair, the ceramics found here do not contain Indonesian culture. The ship was passing by, and it sank. Those are all Chinese ceramics,” Culture and Tourism Minister, Jero Wacik, who is also deputy chairman of Pannas BMKT, said during the auction.

Indonesia To Build Maritime Museum
Bernama, 10 May 2010

The Indonesian government is planning to build a maritime museum in Jakarta in a bid to save the treasure, artifacts and valuable goods retrieved from the old sunken ships in Indonesia’s waters, a minister said Monday.

“We have planned to build a museum, in particular, to store the valuable goods retrieved from many of ships sunk hundreds of years ago in our waters,” Indonesian Maritime and Fisheries Minister Fadel Muhammad was quoted by the Antara news agency as saying after opening an oceanography conference in Bali.

The minister said that the Indonesian government would contact officials in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) regarding the plan.

Ganesha. Cambodia, Angkor period, 13th century. Bronze. National Museum of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Ga5987

Saving culture for the future
Phnom Penh Post, 04 May 2010

The exhibition, titled “Gods of Angkor”, will showcase more than Cambodia’s art; it is also a stage for the country’s new generation of museum conservators, who have been tasked with preserving some of Cambodia’s key archaeological heritage pieces.

Though a generation of conservators was lost during the Khmer Rouge period, the last decade has seen a new crop emerge to take its place in the National Museum’s Metal Conservation Laboratory.

“The exhibition is going to introduce the laboratory to the world,” said Cort, the curator for ceramics at the Freer and Sackler Galleries of the Smithsonian Institution and the upcoming exhibition’s co-curator.

The laboratory was launched in 2005 as part of a training partnership with the Freer and Sackler Galleries. The Smithsonian exhibition marks the first time works that have been conserved completely independently by the laboratory will be shown internationally.

UOW hobbit makes it big in Japan
Illawara Mercury, 27 April 2010

For the first time, people in Japan have the chance to come face to face with the human “hobbit”, a miniature species first discovered by University of Wollongong and Indonesian researchers in 2004.

And we could soon see a replica in the Illawarra.

The Homo floresiensis exhibit in Tokyo includes an anatomically correct model of the hobbit, a 1.1m tall female adult who existed on the Indonesian island of Flores until about 18,000 years ago.

Other discoveries exhibited at the National Museum of Nature and Science (NMNS) include a giant rat, similar in size to a household cat.

The reconstruction involved careful measurements of skeletal elements and the combined efforts of palaeoanthropologists, anatomists and artists.

The original findings were made during a nine-year period from 2001 to 2005 and 2007 to 2010, according to UOW professor in archaeology Mike Morwood.

photo credit: Aglae0

‘e-museum’ of Angkor temples
The Straits Times, 26 April 2010

A controversial North Korean construction company is in talks to build an ‘e-museum’ of Cambodia’s famed Angkor temples, a senior official said on Monday.

Mansudae Overseas Projects wants to build a museum close to the temple complex that will feature a computer-generated simulation of the ancient monuments, Cambodian Culture Ministry secretary of state Khem Sarith told AFP.

‘They have plans to build an electronic museum detailing the history of Angkor Wat temples,’ he said, adding he supported the plans after discussions last week with a company delegation and North Korean ambassador Ri In Sok.

Museums fret as Visitor numbers drop
Bangkok Post, 18 April 2010

Bangkok’s museums are concerned at a continued fall in visitor numbers this year due to the prolonged political stand-off between the government and United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship.

The Ministry of Culture’s Fine Arts Department oversees five museums in the capital and adjacent areas including the Bangkok National Museum, National Gallery, Royal Elephant National Museum, National Museum of Royal Barges, and Silpa Bhirasri Memorial National Museum.