CNN —Hidden under years of dirt and grime in storage rooms, hundreds of precious religious objects have been rediscovered at a monastery in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu. Until earlier this year, three of the sculptures were more than 7,500 miles away in New York’s Rubin Museum of Art, which specializes in Himalayan art, as well as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Like many of Nepal’s religious sites, Itumbaha is no stranger to the theft and looting of its relics and architecture. A 14th-century carving religious carving (top) that was returned to Itumbaha by New York's Rubin Museum of Art. But for Itumbaha’s leaders, the process of recovering these objects was not only about addressing historical injustice.

---

Persons: ”, New York’s Rubin, New York's Rubin, Pranab Joshi, Rubin, Swosti Rajbhandari, Pragya Ji, Jorrit Britschgi, “, ’ ”, Roshan Mishra, Mishra, Nepalis, it’s, —, ” Mishra, they’re, ” Kayastha, ‘, ” “ Rubin, “ Rubin, Riddhi Baba Pradhan, Itumbaha Pradhan Organizations: CNN, New York’s, New York’s Rubin Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New, New York's Rubin Museum of Art, Met, Lumbini Buddhist University, Records, Ithum Conservation Society, Rubin Museum, Lost Arts of Nepal, “ Locations: Nepal’s, Kathmandu, New, Itumbaha, Nepal, Lumbini, Ithum, Kathmandu Valley