Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet on Thursday (August 22) attended a homecoming ceremony for several centuries-old antiquities looted from the country during war and unrest.

Hun Manet, accompanied by Cambodia's Minister of Culture Phoeurng Sackona, laid garlands in front of ancient statues on display during the ceremony, which was attended by several government officials and U.S. diplomats, in Phnom Penh’s Peace Palace.

Among the 70 items on display, 14 sculptures were repatriated from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) last year and arrived in Cambodia on July 3. The other 56 items came from private collections, previously stolen from Cambodia.

The artifacts included various Khmer cultural treasures, pre-Angkor and Angkor period Hindu sculptures of Shiva and Uma, and the bronze head of a statue of Buddhist saint Lokeshvara, which will be reunited with its body at the National Museum of Phnom Penh after being separated for decades due to war and illicit trafficking. -Report from Reuters