Stolen Buddha head finally returns home

Abbot Hsing Yun from Taiwan arrives at Beijing Capital International Airport on Friday with a 1,500-year-old Buddha head that was stolen in 1996. A Taiwan businessman who had brought the head back from overseas donated it in 2014 to the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist temple in Kaohsiung. ZOU HONG / CHINA DAILY

"It's not acceptable to see many lost national treasures of China scattered overseas," he explained. "After traveling abroad for so long and coming to Taiwan, it should go back home."

"The statue represents the highest level of statue-making techniques in the dynasty," said Liu Jianhua, an expert with the National Committee of Cultural Relics.

He said it was the only found Buddha statue with a clear record of its connection to the royal family from the Northern and Southern Dynasties period (AD 420-589), which was a zenith of Chinese Buddha statues.

"It is one of the most precious Chinese cultural relics that was lost overseas but finally returned," said Liu Shuguang, deputy director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.

The complete statue will later be permanently housed in Hebei Museum.

According to Zhang Lifang, head of the Hebei provincial administration of cultural heritage, a restoration project has been designed for the head, and it will be set back on the body and exhibited as a whole.