The Shenzhen Customs House handed over 18,011 cultural relics confiscated from smugglers to the Guangdong Provincial Cultural Department Tuesday.

This was a portion of the 30,000 cultural relics intercepted by the Shenzhen Customs House since 1987.

Valuable objects included a 60-million-year-old dinosaur egg fossil, pottery dating back to the Han Dynasty (BC206-220AD) and a two-ton iron Buddha image of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

The handover was based on a memorandum for cooperation in clamping down on cultural relic smuggling signed between Guangdong and Shenzhen.

The remaining confiscated objects will be attended to soon.

(Xinhua News Agency October 23, 2001)