Australia returns ancient relics to China

Australia handed over to China two Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) head statues in a major ceremony on Wednesday, the latest repatriation of Chinese relics under joint efforts to protect cultural heritage and build on ties between the two nations.

At the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, senior officials and representatives from both sides witnessed the handover of the head statues of a civil official and a military official, from the Song imperial mausoleums in Gongyi, Central China's Henan province, near the then-capital of Kaifeng.

Speaking at the ceremony, Chinese Ambassador to Australia Liu Jinsong said the two statues "once stood quietly guarding the ancient tombs. They have seen the passage of time and traveled across the oceans".

According to the National Gallery of Australia, the relics became part of its collection in 1995.

China's National Cultural Heritage Administration said in a statement that the restitution process of the statues was initiated with a request to the National Gallery of Australia in 2025 to return them, following investigations and studies by relevant Chinese authorities.

The two sides subsequently worked together under international conventions and agreements on the protection of cultural property, and successfully secured the return of the relics to China.

The ambassador expressed his heartfelt appreciation to "all the Australian institutions and individuals who have contributed to this return", and thanked the museum and heritage professionals from both countries for their work.

"The return of these two statues is not the end of their story. It is a new beginning for research, conservation and cultural heritage," he said.

Nick Mitzevich, director of the National Gallery of Australia, said it is committed to the "ethical management of the national collection through due diligence and proactive provenance research".

"We value and respect international collaboration and we consider repatriation to be more than a physical return of an object. It is an act of respect, an act of responsibility and an act of world partnership," he said.

Tang Wei, deputy director of China's National Cultural Heritage Administration, said that promoting the return of cultural objects lost overseas to their countries of origin is "an act of justice", safeguarding cultural heritage and the "national sentiments of people".

He said that government agencies, museums and cultural heritage institutions in China and Australia have worked closely in recent years to honor their commitment to the protection of cultural heritage under international frameworks.

The repatriation of the Song statues comes three years after Australia returned five relics to China, including two figurines dating back about 1,400 years ago, and a reptile fossil from northeastern China dating back to between 133 and 120 million years ago.

Duan Yong, director of the Center for Research on Chinese Cultural Relics Abroad at Shanghai University, said that over the past decade, the recovery and return of lost cultural relics have shown "a trend that is relatively favorable to countries, including China, that suffered the loss of their cultural heritage".

He explained that countries dispossessed of their cultural heritage have continued to make recovery efforts to protect their cultural rights and interests. The spirit of relevant international conventions — such as UNESCO's 1970 Convention and the UNIDROIT 1995 Convention — is gaining wider acceptance, providing an important legal basis for recovery and return.

"In the recovery of lost cultural relics, research on provenance and transfer history is very important and plays a decisive role, especially in litigation," he said. "The return of cultural relics by the Australian side was precisely due to sufficient provenance."

He called for strengthening research on the provenance and transfer history of lost cultural relics, enhancing registration and filing for relics in domestic collections and private hands, and conducting thorough exploration and investigation of buried relics.

Contact the writers at xinxin@chinadaily.com.cn

XIN XIN and ALEXIS HOOI in Canberra and DENG ZHANGYU in Beijing