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Edward Wong ("China: Tang Dynasty Coffin Returned by U.S. Businessman" New York Times, June 18, 2010) writes: A 27-ton imperial sarcophagus from the Tang Dynasty that was stolen by tomb raiders has been returned to China from the United States, according to a report in China Daily, an official English-language newspaper. The coffin, which was stolen from the tomb of the Tang empress Wu Huifei, who died in 737, arrived at the Shaanxi History Museum on Thursday. Chinese police officers first discovered that the relic had been stolen in 2006. They traced it to a businessman in the United States, who had bought it for $1 million, China Daily reported. The businessman agreed to return the coffin unconditionally after three rounds of negotiations. The coffin was shipped from Virginia on March 16.Well, isn't that nice of him?
Perhaps he'd have been a little less out of pocket if before buying it he'd made the condition of the seller revealing how the object surfaced on the market, and what made the sale of a coffin from an imperial tomb "legitimate". Was he tricked by the trade, or did he just not care? It seems to me to be an extremely difficult thing to buy "by accident" a stolen artefact when it is something like this (unique associated with a known person whose single tomb is known to exist in a specific place). Again, no names, no details are given - like where he claims to have acquired it from..
Photo: Stolen portable antiquities are generally a bit smaller than this one.
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