The reassembled Buddha head and standing Buddha statue are displayed at the Fenyang Museum. Photo: Official WeChat account of the Fenyang Museum

The Fenyang city Museum in North China's Shanxi Province on Saturday completed identification of a stone Buddha head sculpture, believed to be around 1,400 years old, that was recently donated by a local villager who discovered it near a local pig farm. The head may be the missing piece of a matching headless statue already on display at the museum, according to the museum's official WeChat account on Sunday.

Experts identified the head as being from the Northern Qi period (550-577), and recommended that the museum formally accept it as a donation. A formal donation ceremony is scheduled on July 18, when the villager will be commended. 

An earlier report by Jimu News, which is affiliated with Hubei Daily media group, said that the Buddha head was unearthed by a villager while digging near a pig farm in Dongzhao village in Sanquan township of Fenyang. Museum staff later found that it is likely the long-missing head of a standing Buddha statue already in the museum's collection. 

The standing Buddha statue displayed at the Fengyang Museum Photo: Jimu News

According to a village official, the torso being exhibited in the museum was also from Dongzhao village, which used to have seven or eight temples, and many of the unearthed Buddhist sculptures are believed to have come from those sites, too. 

A local villager said he noticed the headless Buddha statue came from his village while visiting the museum and had reported to the village committee, prompting a search that ultimately led to the discovery of the missing Buddha head.

The stone Buddha head sculpture found in Dongzhao village in Fengyang, North China's Shanxi province Photo: Jimu News

The sandstone Buddha head measures 37.5 centimeters in height, 24 centimeters in width and 25.5 centimeters in thickness. Experts said its polished ushnisha, broad forehead, full face, faint smile and simple carving style are typical features of stone Buddhist sculptures from the Northern Qi Dynasty.

After comparing the stone material, weathering patterns and fractured surfaces, the experts concluded that the Buddha head roughly matches the standing headless Buddha statue in the museum's collection which was also unearthed in the same village and is currently being displayed at a special exhibition. 

The Buddha head has now been added to the museum's collection and is undergoing scanning, registration and documentation.

Shanxi was the heartland of the Northern Qi, one of the northern dynasties of the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420-589) period, and a center of Buddhist stone carving.  

According to the Fenyang city government's website, the Fenyang Museum was established in 1984 and is open to the public free of charge. Its collection includes more than 9,000 cultural relics, including 416 nationally recognized precious cultural relics. 

Global Times