Relic experts in Fujian province presented evidence suggesting that a 1,000-year-old Buddha statue containing a mummified monk, which had been on display at an exhibition in Hungary, may have been stolen from a village temple in the province.

The State Administration of Cultural Heritage has accepted the villagers' application asking for retrieval of the statue and launched due procedures, local authorities said on Monday.

The statue, featured in the MummyWorld Exhibition at the Hungarian Natural History Museum in Budapest, "had been removed and sent back to the Netherlands due to the request of the loaning partner, the Drents Museum", the museum's website said.

The Drents Museum received the statue into its collection in 1996. The statue grabbed global attention last month after an X-ray revealed it contained the mummified remains of a Buddhist monk.

Chen Qizhong, director of the Datian County Museum in Fujian province, said the statue bears a striking resemblance to the one stolen in 1995 from an ancestral temple in the county's Yangchun village.

"The statues look alike and both have marks in the hands and the stomach," Chen said, adding that the words written on the exhibited statue's cushion are the same as those on the lost statue.

The county museum has also sought help from the Chinese chamber of commerce in Hungary, which checked the statue's size, height and weight. The data proved to be similar to the stolen statue's, Chen said.

Wang Yongping, director of the Fujian Cultural Relics Authentication Center, said the historical document showed the monk was mummified in China's Song Dynasty (960-1279), which matched the Dutch scientists' claim that the mummy is from the 11th or 12th century.

Xinhua News Agency quoted a statement on Tuesday by Erik Bruijn, spokesman for the private Dutch collector who bought the statue in 1996, as saying that the decision to remove the statue from the exhibition was made considering the unexpected media exposure that seemed not to be in his favor.

No name and nationality of the collector was mentioned in the statement; nor were the comments made on the controversy related to the proprietary right.

Huo Zhengxin, a professor of international law at China University of Political Science and Law, said it may be difficult to call for the return of the statue.

Huo said the Netherlands did not sign the 1995 Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects, a major law for the international repatriation of illegally trafficked cultural items.

Huo said that the case may be handled under the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, and that cooperation between the two countries' diplomatic and public security authorities will be required.

Contact the writers through sunli@chinadaily.com.cn.

(China Daily 03/25/2015 page4)