Call to hand back looted treasures

Indonesia has demanded that the Netherlands return valuable collections of fossils and jewels.

The former Dutch colony is calling for the return of hundreds of artworks, valuables looted by troops from a Balinese palace, and eight collections, including the famous, fossilised hominid skull of Java Man.

Top of the list sent to the ministry of education, culture and science is the Lombok Treasure, a once-large hoard of precious stones and gold and silver jewellery plundered from the Balinese royal palace in 1894.

The Leiden museum, which has the Java Man skull, estimated to be two million years old, said the skull would not have been found but for an excavation by Dutch palaeoanthropologist Eugène Dubois in 1892.