China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage revealed on Tuesday that France returned the 32 solid gold antiquities1 earlier this year.
中国国家文物局周二透露，法国在今年早些时候曾向中国归还32件纯金古董。
The
ornaments2 include four solid gold bird's heads.
They had been stolen by tomb robbers in a small county of China's Gansu province and
smuggled3 abroad.
Bai Jian, deputy director of the cultural
relics4 bureau in Gansu, says a large number of stolen cultural relics were sent abroad in the 1990s.
"In the early 1990s, tomb robbing was
rampant5 near burial sites dating back to the Qin Dynasty in Li county of Gansu province. The national cultural relics bureau and the local government
jointly6 launched a campaign to crack down on tomb robbing. Some of the treasure was
reclaimed7 by authorities during the campaign. Yet a large amount of it is still missing that has great value in archaeological studies."
Chinese authorities have spent years tracking the lost treasure and found they were purchased by two private collectors in France and later donated to a national museum.
Song Xinchao, deputy head of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, says those ornaments were returned to China after complex
negotiations8 via diplomatic channels.
"French law forbids national museums giving away their collections because it
stipulates9 that all state-owned assets are non-transferable. The French government could not break the law. However, it also did not want to
breach10 relevant international conventions, so it
decided11 to return the gifts to the
donors12."
The treasure was returned in the name of its donator after the collector consented to withdraw the donation to the museum.
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