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| the Buddha statue 1500 years ago |
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| the Buddha statue 1500 years ago |
Approximately 3,000 Buddha statues were unearthed during an archaeological excavation in Handan, located southwest in Hebei province of China. The Institute of Archaeology of Chinese Academy of Social Science (IA CASS) and Cultural Relics Institute of Hebei province recently announced this news together.
The archaeologists from CASS said the statues are believed to be over 1,500 years old and date back to the Eastern Wei and Northern Qi dynasties (AD 534-AD 577). They may have been rounded up and buried after the fall of the Northern Qi dynasty by later emperors in an attempt to purge the country of Buddhism.
The discovery is believed to be the largest of its kind since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, an archaeologist with CASS told reporters in late March.
The majority of the recovered statures are made of white marble and limestone; a few were decorated with carvings.
"It may have been that some of the ruins and broken sculptures from the past were gathered from old temple sites and buried in a pit," said Katherine Tsiang, director of the Center for the Art of East Asia at the University of Chicago.
In some cases, the Buddhist statues may have been buried by the faithful themselves in times of danger.
"In other sites, there are inscriptions that suggest that old damaged sculptures were not just dumped in a pit, but respectfully buried in an orderly way," Tsiang said.
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