Monastery returns pagoda body after 19-year nationwide search

Nearly 20 years after being stolen, a 1,300-year-old stone Buddhist pagoda body has been returned to its home of northern Shanxi province with the best wishes from pilgrims across the Taiwan Straits, officials said Sunday.

The 1.77-meter-high component, a part of a 3.2-meter-high pagoda was located in Dengyu village in Shanxi province's Yushe county. Based on inscriptions on the pagoda, it appears to have been made in 720 AD. It was included in Shanxi's first provincial list of key protection cultural relics as early as in 1965. However, its top part was stolen in 1996, and the body became lost two years later. Its octagonal foundation and eaves were left at the site.

"It's rare to see such exquisite stone pagoda of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) in Shanxi, even though our province has abundant Buddhist cultural relics," said Shi Jinming, director of the Shanxi Museum, where a ceremony on Sunday was held to announce the pagoda body's return. The artifact was quietly returned to the museum in January.