The Sri Ksetra Museum Inventory provides public access to this significant collection for the first time. The Inventory records the majority of the Museum collection up until 2015. Nearly all of the artefacts date to Myanmar's Pyu period of the first millennium. Many of the objects have been documented for the first time, having been kept in storage in some cases unseen for nearly one hundred years. As only a limited amount of collection material can be publicly displayed in the Museum the Inventory provides immediate access to resource materials that would otherwise be out of reach. From intact votive tablets in diverse styles, to fragments of terracotta plaques and stone sculptures this is the most comprehensive collection of Pyu material culture in Myanmar. With the rise of interest in Pyu scholarship since the UNESCO listing of The Pyu Ancient Cities in 2014, this inventory, which also includes more recent finds from the important Pyu site of Khin Ba, will broaden scholars' appreciation of Pyu culture and open avenues for future research across many disciplines.

For the past century and a half, extensive looting and illicit trafficking of Southeast Asia's cultural heritage have scattered art objects from the region to museums and private collections around the world. Today, however, power relations are shifting, a new awareness is growing, and new questions are emerging about the representation and ownership of Southeast Asian cultural material located in the West. This book offers a timely consideration of object restitution and related issues across Southeast Asia, bringing together a range of viewpoints, including those of museum professionals and scholars in Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia, as well as Europe, North America, and Australia. The contributors address legal, cultural, political and diplomatic issues involved in the restitution process, and they also look at the ways object restitution is integral to evolving narratives of national identity. Ultimately, the book's editors conclude, restitution processes can transform narratives of loss into opportunities for gain, building knowledge and reconstructing relationships across national borders.