Mongolia appealed on Monday for more support to recover its cultural artefacts and asked Russia, Britain and other countries to repatriate them, some dating back more than two millennia.
Key artifacts include a letter from Mongolia’s first prime minister declaring independence from China’s Manchu dynasty, currently at the British Library in London, the Mongolian government said in a statement.
Artifacts associated with the Persian statesman Rashid al-Din, who worked at the courts of several Mongol rulers of Persia in the 13th and 14th centuries, are held at the Edinburgh Museum, the statement added.
In recent decades, many countries, including former colonies of European empires, have demanded the return of cultural and historical artifacts taken years ago, many of them housed in museums reluctant to hand over their collections.
Mongolia has recently made some progress in reclaiming its cultural artifacts. Earlier this year, the United States returned dinosaur fossils from Mongolia, including the skull of an Alioramus, a smaller version of a tyrannosaurus rex that lived 70 million years ago.
At a forum in Russia last week, Mongolia’s Culture Minister Nomin Chinbat also asked for Moscow’s help in identifying and returning artifacts that were sent to Russia for research and restoration purposes a hundred years ago, including 2,000-year-old Hunnu Dynasty artifacts excavated from Noyon, the Uul burial site, by Russian explorer Pyotr Kozlov in the 1920s.
“I thank the countries that have supported Mongolia in this important work so far, and I look forward to working with more international partners on these important initiatives in the spirit of friendship and mutual respect,” Chinbat said.
Editor : M.I.
