Chinese terracotta warrior experts to visit Philadelphia to assess damage to ancient statue
Home of China’s clay army says it will reconsider its loan policy on artefacts in wake of ‘thumb-gate’ incident
China will send two experts to the United States to assess the damage to an ancient terracotta warrior vandalised while on display at a museum in Pennsylvania, according to a Chinese newspaper report.
A 24-year-old American man, Michael Rohana, was charged earlier this month with breaking off and stealing the left thumb of the 2,000-year-old sculpture from the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia on December 21.
The Shaanxi Cultural Heritage Promotion Centre, which arranged for the loan of 10 items from its world-famous Terracotta Army, had assembled a team to carry out the repairs, but would wait until the two specialists had visited the US museum and made their assessment before deciding how best to proceed, Beijing Youth Daily reported on Monday.
The terracotta statues, which have been on show in Philadelphia since September, are part of a clay army of about 8,000 soldiers, charioteers and horses unearthed in Xian, capital of northwestern China’s Shaanxi province.