Dutch, Sri Lankan Officials Agree to Return of Colonial Artifacts | VOA News

An agreement to return colonial-era artifacts from the Netherlands to Sri Lanka was signed Monday.

Sri Lanka’s Minister for Culture Vidura Wickramanayaka and the Dutch State Secretary for Culture and Media Gunay Uslu signed a legal document in Colombo transferring the ownership of cultural artifacts to be returned later this year.

Among those expected to be returned is the blue and gold Canon of Kandy, seized in 1765 by soldiers of the Dutch East Company and displayed in the Prince of Orange’s cabinet of rarities and later the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.