Standing silently, a 2.4 metre tall statue of four-headed Hindu god Brahma could tell an extraordinary story of adventure and intrigue over its seven centuries of existence.
It is one of eight Hindu-Buddhist statues of pre-Islamic, Javanese origin taking pride of place in Indonesia's national museum in Jakarta, having been returned to their country of origin by the government of the Netherlands after two centuries abroad.
In what's being viewed as the fruits of patient diplomacy, the Dutch government last year returned four of the statues along with 284 objects seized during conflicts in Bali in the early years of the 20th century.
They include Keris daggers, original coins, jewellery and textiles taken by the Dutch after battles against the Badung and Tabanan principalities in southern Bali in 1906.
Late last year when the repatriation was announced, the Minister of Education, Culture and Science Eppo Bruins said the items "should never have been in the Netherlands".
"In the colonial period, cultural objects were often looted, or they changed hands involuntarily in some other way. The return of these objects is important with regard to material redress," he said.
It was the second major repatriation of Indonesian artefacts from former coloniser the Netherlands in two years, following a repatriation in 2023 under which 355 objects seized from Lombok were returned, along with the first four Hindu-Buddhist statues from the 13th century Singasari kingdom of East Java.
A dagger was also returned, along with 132 pieces of modern Balinese art that had originally been taken to Holland to be exhibited, but were never brought back.
The Netherlands government at the time said the return of objects was the result of good cooperation with Indonesian counterparts, and was made on the recommendation of a committee established to advise the Dutch government about returning objects taken during colonial times.
"We mainly try to repatriate objects that were taken through looting or the booty of war," said Gunawan, the head of collections at Indonesia's ministry of culture.
Artefacts help piece together history
In the national museum, a display shows the painstaking seven decade-long process to pursue artefacts, starting immediately after Indonesia's independence from Dutch rule in 1949.
Over the decades since, Dutch dignitaries occasionally handed over culturally important objects during state visits to Indonesia.
Individual museums occasionally returned artefacts, such as 380 Papuan ethnographic objects that were returned in 1975.
But the process only kicked into gear after Indonesia formally submitted a list in 2022 requesting certain items and the Dutch government formed an advisory committee.
"From the Netherlands side, they are very, very cooperative," Indonesian Culture Minister Fadli Zon said.
Each of the objects tell their own story, including dozens of coins and precious jewels that were taken when the Royal Netherlands East Indies army defeated Balinese forces in Lombok in 1894 and looted the palace.
Speaking during an event at the museum, Dr Zon said the Netherlands government had been "very, very cooperative".
But he says the process for getting back the country's stolen treasures is far from finished.
"We have to fulfil the puzzle of history through our artefacts, and we would like to ask some other governments to repatriate our cultural objects and artefacts too," he said.
Repatriation a process
Among the most important items that Indonesia's government wants returned isn't a jewel or weapon, but the remains of "Java man", the first known specimen of Homo erectus, considered a missing link between modern humans and apes.
Discovered by forced labourers on the banks of a river in Central Java under the direction of Dutch physician and anatomist Eugene Dubois in the late 19th century, the skull fragment, femur and molar have been the focus of a dispute between the two countries that remains unresolved.
They remain on display in a Dutch natural history museum.
The Netherlands government has said the process for future repatriations would focus on items specifically requested, because there has been huge interest when historic Indonesian items have been on display in the Netherlands.
The Dutch aren't alone in facing requests for restitution and repatriation of looted treasures and artefacts.
Some countries, like France, have taken significant steps over the past decade to change laws to allow the return of artefacts to countries like the Ivory Coast.
Others, like Germany, began the process of returning artefacts, such as bronze plaques and sculptures to Nigeria, only to encounter difficulties in the process.
The Indonesian government has begun talks with Germany about repatriating seven or eight Homo erectus remains that were taken from Java in the 1930s.
The UK has perhaps been criticised the most for the maintenance of decades-old laws forbidding national museums from returning artefacts to their countries of origins.
Some private UK museums have voluntarily done so.
Dr Zon said Indonesia hasn't formally commenced talks with British authorities about artefacts held in the British Museum.
But he said the most sought after item in the UK was actually part of a private estate in Scotland, the so-called Minto Stone that was removed by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles from East Java in 1812 and gifted to British governor-general of India, Lord Minto.
A second stone inscription that Sir Thomas gifted to Lord Minto remains in Calcutta, and Dr Zon says repatriating it from India has been hampered by differences between the provincial and national governments there.
Can Indonesia properly look after its own history?
The repatriation of artefacts to Indonesia and the potential for more in future does involve a touch of wariness from many observers within Indonesia.
At a media event with the culture minister this month, a journalist raised the sticky question of whether Indonesia was capable of properly looking after such returned treasures.
With good reason.
There have been close to 30 museum theft cases recorded since 1961, including a shameful saga in the mid 2000s that saw dozens of ancient bronze sculptures stolen and replaced by replicas at a major museum in Solo.
Some of the originals ended up in the collection of a wealthy and powerful businessman, who was later cleared of wrongdoing, while an archaeological expert witness ended up dead in a highly suspicious motorcycle accident before he could testify in a trial.
The museum director and an antiquities dealer were ultimately jailed.
More recently in 2021, thieves stole 668 trinkets, antique weapons and jewellery from the poorly guarded State museum of Southeast Sulawesi, that were from a collection of about 1,500 artefacts that a Dutch museum had repatriated in 2019.
Could such events happen again to other artefacts being returned by the Dutch?
"Of course we have the capacity to maintain and protect the cultural objects we have repatriated from the Netherlands and other countries," Dr Zon said.
He says Indonesia's museums are working to ensure the long sought after artefacts don't go missing again.
"We have also tried to standardise the storage for our museums, and we're in the process of collecting and verifying all the data for the collection at the national museum," he said.
"We are trying to gather all the pieces of information on our past, and it's vital for our national identity, so that's why it's very important for all those objects to be in Indonesia."
