Stolen dinosaur egg fossils to return to China

(Ecns.cn)--After five years of effort, 22 rare dinosaur egg fossils that were smuggled to the U.S. over two decades ago have been turned over to Chinese authorities and will be transported back to their home country this March, reveals the Chinese edition of Globe magazine.

With the cooperation of both Chinese and American law enforcement agencies, the U.S. handed over the fossils to the Chinese Consulate General in Los Angeles on December 1, 2011.

"This is the third time the U.S. government has returned smuggled fossils to the Chinese government since 2009," Qiu Shaofang, Consul General of China in Los Angeles, told the China Daily.

Experts estimate that the 22 egg fossils, 19 of which are so well preserved that the remains of the dinosaur embryos inside are still visible, date from 65 million years ago.

Jia Yueming, curator of the Geological Museum of China, told Xinhua that the eggs were unearthed in the Nanxiong Basin of Guangdong Province back in 1984 and belonged to the Oviraptor, a dinosaur that existed during the Cretaceous period.

The rare fossils went missing not long after being discovered, and it wasn't until 22 years later on December 1, 2006, that the eggs resurfaced, when USA Today ran an advertisement for their auction.

The newspaper claimed that the fossils had come all the way to the States from China via other locations, including Hong Kong and Taiwan.

On December 2, the items sold at a Los Angeles auction house for $450,000, well above the expected price.

About eight days later, the Chinese government set up a work team to recover the fossils with officials from the Ministry of Land and Resources, the Ministry of Culture, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Public Security and the General Administration of Customs.

"We are paying close attention to reports of the egg fossils, and related government departments are pursuing an investigation," said Qing Gang, then spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry, during a press conference on December 12, 2006. "If the fossils are proven to belong to China, the Chinese government will make a claim to them according to related international conventions."

"This was the first time that the Chinese government tried to reclaim looted fossils through diplomatic channels," commented the Globe.

With the help of the FBI and the LA police, the egg fossils were eventually determined to have been unearthed in Nanxiong Basin, and the U.S. government decided to hand them back to China in May 2011.

On December 6 the same year, a ceremony was held at the Chinese Consulate General in LA, where the fossils were officially returned to Chinese custody.

"We have completed an historic mission," Jia Yueming told the media after the ceremony. "Due to customs procedures, the fossils will possibly come back in March, but the date is not fixed yet. They will be placed at the Geological Museum of China for research first, and then they will be arranged for public display when the opportunity arises。"

It was difficult to get the relics back, Jia noted, since the egg fossils had already been put up for public auction. He also pointed out that China is rich in a variety and quantity of fossils, which have attracted a great number of smugglers.

In addition, the fossils appear to be nothing but stones, which makes it hard for the government to manage; customs officers may not be able to distinguish fossils from regular rocks without special training, Jia told the Globe.

"In general, financial, human and material resources are currently lacking in the protection of fossils," he said. And even though the Regulation on the Protection of Fossils was promulgated in 2010, more detailed measures are needed, he added.

International cooperation also seems to be an effective way to combat smugglers, according to the Globe. Qiu Shaofang said that thanks to joint efforts between the two countries to clamp down on the smuggling of artifacts, the U.S. has successfully returned three batches of fossils to China since 2009.