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The Cleveland Museum of Art said it was voluntarily returning
the stone figure with a human body and a monkey's head and tail,
which it acquired in 1982 from an art dealer in New York who had
since died.
Khmer ballet dancers threw flowers for good luck at the handover
ceremony, attended by Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sok An and
dozens of ministers in Phnom Penh. Officials hung flower
garlands around the statue's neck.
"I am sure that if Hanuman were alive we would see a smile on
his face showing his joy at being here among us where he
belongs," Sok An said after signing handover papers with
Cleveland Museum of Art Director William Griswold.
The statue joins five others from the northern Koh Ker region
recently returned to Cambodia from the United States.
The Cleveland museum said research had found the statue's head
and body had been offered for sale in Thailand in 1968 and 1972.
Experts said it had probably come from the east gate of the
Prasat Chen temple complex.
(Reporting By Reuters Television in Phnom Penh; Writing by
Marie-Louise Gumuchian in London; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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