In this photo provided by Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford on Monday, June 10, 2024, a view of a 500-year-old bronze depicting Tirumankai Alvar. Oxford University has agreed to return a 500-year-old bronze sculpture of a Hindu saint to India. The Ashmolean Museum says the Indian High Commission had made a claim four years ago for the bronze figure of Tirumankai Alvar that was allegedly looted from a temple.
Vijay Kumar, co-founder of India Pride Project, which seeks to reclaim stolen religious artifacts, said worshippers have something to cheer. The planned repatriation comes amid a push by foreign governments, including Nigeria, Egypt and Greece, as well as Indigenous peoples from North America to Australia, seeking to reclaim precious antiquities looted or acquired by questionable means during the heyday of the British Empire.
The Ashmolean said it reached out to the Indian High Commission in 2019 after research from photo archives showed the bronze in a temple in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu in 1957.