After wandering the world for 143 years, a copper sculpture of a "swine head'' used as an ornament of the Yuanmingyuan (Old Summer Palace) yesterday returned home to Beijing.

Lost when invading British and French troops looted the palace in 1860, the national treasure was bought back to China Thursday night by the China Cultural Development Fund through donations from an entrepreneur. It was brought to Beijing on Friday and given to the collection of the state-owned Poly Art Museum.

Jiang Yingchun, director of the museum, said that Hong Kong businessman Stanley Ho donated about "7 million Hong Kong dollars (US$900,000)'' to retrieve the relic from a New York-based collector.

The "swine head'' was part of a series of copper sculptures of men with animal heads that represent the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac. It stood by a fountain built at the palace in 1760.

In 2000, the China Poly Group bought the "heads'' of an ox, a monkey and a tiger for 33 million Hong Kong dollars (US$4.2 million) at auctions in Hong Kong.

Jiang claimed the value of the four "heads'' matches the prices paid for them. However, some Chinese experts say China should stop buying pilfered cultural relics and simply ask for them to be returned by using international convention.

China signed the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Convention of 1970 and the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law 1995, said Zhou Lin, a professor with the Intellectual Property Center at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"Under those conventions, stolen or illegally exported cultural objects can be recovered,'' Zhou added. "But unfortunately some countries, including the US and Britain, didn't sign the two conventions. It's hard to imagine China could ask for the stolen or illegally exported objects based on these conventions at present.''

The four "heads'' are to be displayed at the Poly Art Museum beginning about October 18, museum officials said.

(China Daily September 20, 2003)