After wandering abroad for 80 years, the severed heads of two 1,000-year-old Buddhist sculptures from the Longmen Grottoes of Luoyang, in central China's Henan Province, may finally have the chance to rest again on their own shoulders.

The Longmen Grottoes, a World Cultural Heritage site, contain one of the largest and most impressive collections of Buddhist sculptures of the Northern Wei (AD 386-534) and Tang (AD 618-907) dynasties to be found in the country.

These works mark the apex of the art of stone carving in China.

One of the heads was removed from the statue of a Buddha in the Guyang Grotto and the other from a statue of Avalokitesvara (Guanyin or the Goddess of Mercy) in the Huoding Grotto of the Longmen Grottoes in the 1920s by cultural relic dealers.

They passed through the hands of a number of people before finally entering the collection of a US collector of Chinese origin.

In July of this year, the collector, surnamed Chen, held an exhibition of his collection in Beijing, and the two Buddha heads especially fascinated Chinese archaeologists.

The non-governmental China Cultural Relics Recovery Fund launched its "Longmen National Treasure Restoration Project" and has been negotiating with Chen for the purchase of the two heads so they can be restored to the two grottoes from where they came, according to Zhang Yongnian, director of the China Cultural Relics Recovery Fund.

 (China Daily November 19, 2003)