A lost Buddha(佛像) head statue, which recently made the journey back to China, appeared during the Spring Festival Party of China Central Television. It was its first public show after being successfully sent back from Japan on the second Saturday of December, 2020.
The head, dating back to the Sui Dynasty (581-618), was originally placed on the northern wall in the No.8 Tianlong Shan Grottoes on the suburbs of Taiyuan,
capital of Shanxi Province, according to a statement from the National Cultural Heritage Administration (国家文物局).
It was believed to be stolen and lost overseas around 1924, along with about 240 Buddha imagesthatwere robbed in the 1920s.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 (618-90I) was about to be sold in Tokyo, and was thought to be a stolen piece from Tianlong Shan.
The administration soon began the process of returning it home. In October, the auction house in Tokyo, whose board chairman Zhang Kong Is a Chinese from Fangzhou, agreed to stop the auction.
After discussions 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 gave away to the administration.
The transfer ceremony(交接仪式) for the statue was held in the Chinese Embassy(大使馆) in Tokyo in November, and it arrived in Beijing in December.
After being shown on the Spring Festival Party, the Buddha head statue will be displayed in Beijing Lu Xun Museum from the first day of the first day of the Lunar New Year to March 14.
