Australia returns ancient stone heads to China after more than 30 years

Australia has returned two stone sculptures to China after more than 30 years abroad.

The statues, showing the heads of a military official and civil servant, had been given to the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra by a private collector and date back to the Northern Song dynasty (960–1127).

China’s National Cultural Heritage Administration received the heads on Wednesday, according to the state broadcaster CCTV.

They are thought to have been removed from two imperial mausoleums in Henan province in the 1990s, according to the Australian gallery.

Seven of the nine emperors from the dynasty are buried at the site, which featured statues of officials and stone animals as a symbol of the imperial court’s authority.

Illegal trafficking of ancient cultural artefacts was a serious problem in China during the 1980s and 1990s.

Nine stone statue heads were stolen from the Northern Song mausoleums in the mid to late Nineties, according to a 1999 paper by Bruce Doar published in Archaeology magazine, a publication of the Archaeological Institute of America.

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After a period during which their “location, ownership and method of transfer were unknown”, the two sculptures were donated to the National Gallery of Australia in 1995 by a private collector, according to the gallery’s records.

The two countries agreed to boost cultural exchanges when Chinese Premier Li Qiang visited Australia in 2024 and met Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – the first visit of its kind since 2017.

An exhibition of indigenous Australian artworks will go on display in the National Museum of China next month, while China’s terracotta warriors will go on show in the Australian gallery in December.

Chinese ambassador Liu Jinsong also visited the National Museum of Australia in September, a trip that the embassy said was a mark of “his keen enthusiasm” for such exchanges.