A bronze infant Buddha figurine discovered on the Western Australian coast has been confirmed to be a rare Ming dynasty relic.
The pair who discovered the treasure will auction it for around $100,000, after the UK’s Antiques Roadshow revealed its value.
Leon Dechamps and Shayne Thomson said they came across the bronze infant Buddha in 2018 in the dunes of a WA beach with a metal detector.
Retired WA Museum fellow and respected corrosion expert Dr Ian McLeod confirmed he believed the figure was real.
“It was absolutely a genuine historic object that had been in the sand in Shark Bay for over 100 to 120 years,” McLeod said.
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The Ming dynasty stretchd from 1368–1644.
A Ming dynasty Chinese treasure expedition, not previously thought to have visited Australia, is just one theory for why the object turned up on WA shores.
This could mean the Chinese visited the region almost 200 years before the Dutch ever set sail.
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