Millenium-old stone pagoda to return home in E China

Authorities in East China's Anhui province has confirmed that a 1,200-years-old limestone pagoda is set to return home in early 2014, according to Anhui Museum on Sunday.

The pagoda, 101 cm high and 67.5 cm wide, is expected to return to the province for public display at the Anhui Museum around the Spring Festival (Jan. 31, 2014), said Bian Jian from the museum's planning and exchange department.

Li Zhiyi, deputy curator of the museum, said the most important clue leading to the discovery was from the pagoda itself, which had an inscription showing the Chinese characters for "Bozhou Shansang County," now Mengcheng County in Bozhou City.

Experts also inferred from the inscription that the pagoda was made during a period under the reign of Empress Wu Zetian and Emperor Xuanzong (690 to 742) during the Tang Dynasty, more than 1,200 years ago.

The pagoda, together with 31 other Buddhist statues and shrines, was donated to the Archives Bureau of Wuqing District in Tianjin Municipality earlier this year by Andy Yeh, a well-known antique collector from Taiwan.