The Shaanxi Provincial Cultural Relic Exchange Center will send experts to repair a Terracotta Warrior(兵马俑)that had its thumb stolen by an American young man while it was on show at a Philadelphia museum.
"The terracotta warrior is worth $4.5 million and considered a priceless part of China's cultural(遗物). US departments should have made sure of the safety of the relics when they were shown to the public. More than 260 shows have been organized abroad in the past 40 years and such a situation has never happened before, "the provincial cultural relics department said.
Wang Dongfeng, a cultural relics repair expert, said it takes at least three to five months to repair a terracotta warrior. According to the Stolen (Lost) Cultural Relics Information Publishing Platform of China, up to 60 percent of cases of thefts(失窃)have happened in museums and historical relics organizations. Most cases happened in the 1980s and 1990s. As safety technology developed in recent years, it has become more difficult to steal a cultural relic from a museum in China. But the prices of cultural relics have risen in recent years, which leads to more thefts.
"China will continue to fight against and stop the trading of relics and organized thefts. Anyone who goes against it will be punished, "the head of the provincial cultural relics department said.
Some Chinese social media users criticized (批评) the museum for failing to take care of the country's cultural relics. "The warriors in Xi'an are kept far away from the public. How come these valuable cultural relics are not shown inside glass cases in Philadelphia?" one Internet user wrote.
