China’s Old Summer Palace goes on the hunt for lion’s missing ball
Eagle-eyed visitor notices change to one of a pair of ancient stone relics that was repatriated in 2010
The hunt is on at the Old Summer Palace in Beijing after one of its stone lions was reported to be missing a ball, Chinese media reported.
The incident came to light after a visitor spotted that one of the guardian lion sculptures had changed since he’d last been to see it, China News Agency reported on Wednesday.
The keen cultural historian, identified only by his surname Li, was quoted as saying that he first saw the lions last year and that they had made a big impression on him. When he visited them again recently he immediately noticed that one of them was missing a ball from its mouth.
The sculpture is one of a pair of stone lions that was returned to China from overseas in 2010 as part of a larger collection of artifacts and relics that were likely smuggled out of the country decades ago.