Vietnamese Ambassador to Germany Doan Xuan Hung attended the ceremony. 

The National Museum of Vietnamese History in Hanoi received 18 artefacts from different cultural periods 

The items, seized by Berlin police at a shop of a Vietnamese trader by late 2016, includes 10 stone and eight bronze artifacts, were instruments of production and weapons of ancient people who lived thousands of years ago.

Among those, some are aged around 4,000 years.

Between March 2017 and February 2018, the Vietnamese Embassy in Germany and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism worked with the German agencies to define the origin of the objects and complete procedures to hand over the items to Vietnam.

In March this year, representatives from the Berlin police and the German Ministry of Culture transferred the antiques to the Vietnamese Embassy in Germany.

Nguyen Van Cuong, director of the National Museum of Vietnamese History, said that these objects were among evidences for ancient people in Vietnam who laid foundation for building the country.

The transfer represented Germany’s responsibility in implementing the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transport of Ownership of Cultural Property.

This is the first time Vietnam has received artefacts that went missing abroad through diplomatic channels.