Relics go on display to celebrate their return from France

A visitor photographs ornamental gold foil at the Gansu Provincial Museum in Lanzhou, capital of Gansu province, on Monday. The exhibits, which date back more than 2,000 years, have been recently retrieved from France after being stolen and sold overseas in the 1990s. [Photo by Fan Peishen/Xinhua]

After more than two decades overseas, newly returned Chinese treasures were welcomed home with a special exhibition in Lanzhou, Gansu province, on Monday.

The 32 glittering pieces of ornamental gold foil from the Qin State of the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC) went on display in the Gansu Provincial Museum to celebrate their return from France.

Song Xinchao, deputy director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, said the pieces of gold foil were among the large number of relics illegally excavated between 1990 and 1993 from the Dabuzi Hill tomb complex in Lixian county, Gansu province.

The free exhibition, The Charm of Qin: Gems of Cultural Relics Unearthed in Dabuzi Hill, includes 109 other pieces from the Gansu Provincial Museum and other local archaeological institutions. It runs until Oct 31.

The 32 pieces of foil were held by two French antique collectors, Francois Pinault and Christian Deydier, and were later donated to the Guimet Museum in Paris.