The Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., where the repatriation ceremony took place.Photo Valerie Plesch/picture alliance via Getty Images

Buddhas and Dinosaur Bones Among Dozens of Smuggled Artifacts Repatriated to China

by · ARTnews

In advance of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s three-day visit to the White House last month, the United States quietly repatriated 58 cultural objects and artifacts to China in a ceremony that took place at the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C. Homeland Security Investigations (HIS), a unit that is part of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), announced the news on Wednesday. The following day, six additional bronze objects were also returned to China by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, in a separate ceremony in New York.

While initial reports detailing the returns were quite slim, additional information on the objects has subsequently been released. The returned artifacts include two Buddha sculptures, terracotta statues of horseman, and fossilized dinosaur bones and eggs. One of the more notable objects is a full Psittacosaurus skeleton, a small, plant-eating dinosaur with a distinctive beak. One of the Buddhas was looted more than 100 years ago from the Tianlongshan Grottoes, a temple complex in Shanxi Province.

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Nine different HSI offices worked with the FBI, the U.S. State Department, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection on the investigations, the goal being to stop the black-market trade in ancient antiquities. This, ICE points out, is often used to fund criminal activity.

“The trafficking of cultural property not only robs civilizations of their heritage, but also channels money into transnational criminal organizations, results in international money laundering, and even funds terrorist activities,” said Ricardo Mayoral, HIS’s assistant director of international operations, in a statement.

According to the South China Morning Post, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said at the ceremony that “China and the US should go in the same direction in the spirit of equality, mutual respect and mutual benefit so as to accomplish more great and concrete things for the good of our two countries and peoples.”