The director of the Shaanxi Cultural Heritage Promotion Centre, a Chinese governmental organization that loaned 10 terracotta warriors to the Philadelphia museum, strongly condemned the "theft and the destruction of our [Chinese] heritage" and demanded to "severely punish the perpetrator" in the interview for China Central Television (CCTV).
READ MORE: Chinese Museum Demands Return of Sculptures From US University Collection
On December 21, the Franklin Institute student Michael Rohana, while on his way to a pre-Christmas party, entered the exhibition in the Institute through an unlocked door. There he decided to take a selfie with one of the statues and, willingly or not, broke one of its fingers off and took it with him.
The museum noticed the damage several weeks later and addressed the FBI, which tracked it to Rohana. He was later released on bail.
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The Terracotta Army is one of China's greatest archeological treasures. Discovered in 1974 by a group of farmers, it became a key tourist attraction. The army, which consists of 8,000 clay warriors, was built more than 2,000 years ago for the first Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang and buried along with him so it could protect the emperor in the afterlife.
