Over 1,000 Buddha statues found in north China

Over 1,000 ancient Buddha statues that could date back to the Ming Dynasty have been found in north China's Shanxi Province, officials said today.
The Buddha statues were found in three stone caves in a cliff in Yangqu County, local archaeologists said.
The stone statues carved into the cave walls are 12 to 25 centimetres long, Yang Jifu, director of the county's cultural heritage tourism bureau said.
The statues could date back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), according to archaeologists.
Yang was quoted by state-run Xinhua news agency as saying that according to a record on two steles, two of the caves had been restored in the Ming Dynasty.

Archaeologists with the institute of archaeology of Taiyuan, capital of the province, said stone Buddha statue art reached its peak during the period from the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420-589) to the Tang Dynasty (618-907), so it is rare to find stone Buddha statues from the Ming Dynasty.
The discovery will contribute to the research on the development and change in religious art in northern ancient China, the report in the Xinhua news agency said.