Evidence suggests Venice’s lion statue was made in China

New info surrounding the “Lion of Venice” in Piazzetta San Marco is making historians second-guess the origins of the statue.

Sitting on its Egyptian granite perch, the “Lion of Venice” has been a fixture of the city as early as 1293 and symbolises the Lion of Saint Mark, a traditional symbol of Saint Mark the evangelist.

A new study by the University of Padua has revealed that the chemical composition of the lion is linked to copper ore deposits in the Yangtze River basin in China. The statute itself has centuries of history tied to it, and it was known to have been assembled in pieces due to its sheer size (four meters) and weight (3,000 kgs). Rather than depicting a griffin, some speculate that it could actually be China’s medieval tomb guardian the zhènmùshòu. This is interesting news as it was documented that Marco Polo’s father and uncle were in the presence of Genghis Kha from 1264 to 1266 in Beijing.

It was speculated before the statue originated from the Oriental Greek world but with a deep look at the lead isotopes, there is strong evidence that the structure came from much further away, near the Blue River in southern China.