The Nanjing Museum has received a batch of 361 relics and artifacts from China's National Cultural Heritage Administration (NCHA) that had been returned by the United States.
The relics and artifacts, mostly burial objects from ancient Chinese tombs, date back from the Neolithic Age to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). They include stone tools, jade ware, bronze ware, pottery, coins, wood carvings and building components.
The relics and artifacts, which were recovered by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in a 2014 operation, were repatriated to China last year through the joint efforts of the NCHA, Chinese diplomatic agencies in the United States, U.S. State Department and the FBI.
This was the third and largest single batch of relics and artifacts returned from the United States since 2009 when the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding to enhance cooperation in this regard.
"The relics and artifacts have enriched the collections of the Nanjing Museum, especially in categories where we lack collections," said Wang Qizhi, deputy curator of Nanjing Museum, in east China's Jiangsu Province.
In recent years, the NCHA has intensified its efforts to seek lost relics from overseas and bring them back to China.
Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, around 300 batches, totaling 140,000 pieces, of Chinese relics have been retrieved from overseas through law enforcement cooperation, lawsuits, negotiations and donations and other means, according to a 2019 NCHA tally.
