Big stash of Mao statues found at abandoned well in Shaanxi

(ECNS) – A large number of plaster statues of Chairman Mao Zedong have been found in an abandoned well in Sanyuan county, Shaanxi province, drawing local residents to dig them out, Chinese Business View reported.

The statues were found during road repair work at the county's Shengsi alley.

On Wednesday evening, an older woman surnamed Li was busy digging statues out of the well with other residents. She had dug out bags of statues, most of which were broken. "I will take these pieces home and put them together," she said.

Li added that she was just taking the statues as mementos rather than for profit.

According to an unidentified old man, the place where the statues were found used to be a materials factory, and the statues would have been placed in the well in the 1970s.

Local police and the cultural relics bureau stopped the residents' dig.

Wang Bing, an official at the local bureau of heritage and tourism, said they have dug out dozens of bags of the plaster statues, all of which were turned over to a local museum.