On the 16th and 17th local time, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China received two batches of 64 pieces (sets) of cultural relics, artworks and paleontological fossils returned to China from the U.S. Homeland Security Investigations Bureau and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in Washington and New York respectively.
This is the standing Bodhisattva statue of Tianlong Mountain Grottoes (front) taken at the cultural relics return and handover ceremony held at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., on September 16. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Li Rui
The cultural relics, artworks and paleontological fossils returned by the United States this time, including the Bodhisattva body on the north side of the west wall of Cave 17 in Tianlong Mountain, statues, pottery figurines, dinosaur skeleton fossils, fish fossils, dinosaur egg fossils, etc., were all seized by U.S. law enforcement agencies during their work. The State Administration of Cultural Heritage, in close collaboration with the Chinese Embassy and Consulates in the United States and the United States, successfully completed the return of cultural relics, artworks and paleontological fossils lost to China by nine branches of the U.S. Homeland Security Investigations Bureau. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in New York returned cultural relics and artworks to China for the fifth time.
On January 14, 2009, China and the United States signed for the first time an intergovernmental memorandum of understanding to prevent the illegal entry of Chinese cultural relics into the United States, and it has since been renewed three times in a row. According to the memorandum of understanding, the government departments of the two countries have actively carried out return cooperation and realized the return of many batches of Chinese cultural relics lost to the United States to the motherland.
Reprinted from Xinhua News Agency
