CULTURAL ASSETS YET TO BE REGAINED

[Anchor Lead]

Korean cultural assets that spent many years overseas during the most tumultuous period in the country's history have been put on display at a museum in Seoul. Priceless treasures that were taken abroad for various reasons are returning to their home country one by one, but 210000 pieces have yet to be regained.

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Patterns of plum blossoms, bamboo trees and birds look like a painting. It's a mother-of-pearl jewelry box that only exists in paucity in Korea. This rare white porcelain jar was coated in copper pigment. At the bottom of the jar, you can spot a name of an American national who had once held onto this relic. "Yeolseongeopil" is a priceless collection of the Joseon monarchs' writings. All these relics were regained recently through overseas auctions. Some 40 pieces of Korean relics, each having a story to tell, have been gathered all in one place. Three state seals that were stolen during the Korean War and later found in the U.S. were returned after the 2014 South Korea-U.S. summit. The bamboo books of a Joseon crown princess, which were thought to have been burned and destroyed during the French campaign against Korea in 1866, were in fact stolen by the French army.

[Soundbite] Kang Im-san(Overseas Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation) : "Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, this relic was in the hands of a civilian. It was put up for auction. Luckily, our bid was successful."

Some of the relics were returned without a reward. An album of paintings called the Gyeomjae Jeongseon Hwacheop, purchased and kept by a German priest, was returned to Korea in the form of permanent rent instead of being put up for auction. Rare armor of the late Joseon period was also donated by the German monastery in recognition of its cultural value. Clothes that used to belong to Princess Deokhye, the last princess of the Korean Empire, were kept at a Japanese museum before they were finally returned to Korea. More than 780 pieces of cultural relics have been returned to Korea in the past decade.

[Soundbite] Kim Kye-shik(Overseas Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation) : "Our team traveled the world to retrieve those relics in the past ten years. The distance they have traveled is 160 times the Earth's circumference."

Korea has yet to regain 210,000 pieces of its cultural heritage scattered across 25 different countries.