Lost relic returns home in time for Spring Festival

This 44.5-cm-high Buddha head is the first among these stolen items to be returned from Japan.

The National Cultural Heritage Administration learned in September a Chinese Buddha head statue labeled as from Tang Dynasty (618-907) was about to be auctioned in Tokyo, and was suspected to be a stolen piece from Tianlongshan.

The administration soon began the process of repatriation. In October, the auction house in Tokyo, whose board chairman Zhang Rong is a Chinese from Hangzhou, agreed to cancel the auction.

After negotiations between the National Cultural Heritage Administration, Zhang, and the local holder of the relic in Japan, the Buddha head was bought by Zhang and finally donated to the administration.

The transfer ceremony for the lost relic was held in the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo in November, and it arrived in Beijing in December.