US returns ancient antiquities to China

Chinese Culture

US returns ancient antiquities to ChinaUS returns ancient antiquities to China

22 artifacts, some more than four thousand years old, are headed back home to China. They were recently seized in federal investigations that spread across three U.S. states involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

CCTV America’s Jessica Stone reports.

More details:

  • A 2009 bilateral agreement between the U.S. and China has made these investigations more successful and has helped speed the return of stolen artifacts to China.
  • All of the artifacts seized will go back to China, except a dinosaur skeleton (a microraptor from Liaoning Province) that is at least 120 million years old. U.S. investigators discovered it belonged to China when they reached out to a paleontologist from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
  • The fossil will be loaned to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History as a symbol of China-U.S. cooperation and will be part of an exhibit about the problem of stolen artifacts. It will be returned to China in a year.