Villagers of Yangchun fail to get back the mummy Buddha statue stolen from China in 1995 despite months of contact with the Dutch collector.
Lawyers have finished evidence collection to reclaim a 1,000-year-old Buddha statue containing a mummified monk from a Dutch owner.
A lawyer representing the Chinese village in its quest to retrieve the mummified Buddha says an appeal would be submitted to a Dutch court later this month.
As the birthday of Patriarch Zhanggong (the Buddhist monk whose mummified statue was stolen from China) approaches, Li Zhen, an overseas liaison officer, hoped for the statue's earliest return to China.
The returning of the statue of Patriach Zhanggong is taking a turn for the worse as the Dutch collector of the statue ate his words.
Through a social network, Oscar van Overeem, who owns the mummified Buddha statue, said recently he is willing to return the relic to China.
Twenty years ago, a seated Buddhist saint – Patriarch Zhanggong– was reported missing from Yangchun village in Southeast China's Fujian province. This March, the gold-lacquered statue was discovered in the possession of a Dutch art collector in the Netherlands.
The State Administration of Cultural Heritage has gotten in touch with the Dutch collector who now owns the mummified Buddha.
The significance of retrieving the mummified Buddha Zhanggong goes far beyond the implication of retrieving a lost relic, as it is more than just a piece of cultural artifact for the Chinese nation and is part of its national heritage.
Chinese representatives in Hungary urged the Dutch government to "take proper actions" to bring about the return of the allegedly stolen mummified Buddha.
Chinese villagers wrote a second letter to a Dutch museum and collector demanding the return of an allegedly stolen mummified Buddha statue.
Letter to the Drents Museum and the Buddha statue collector
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