Venice's famed winged lion statue—often snapped by tourists in St. Mark's Square—may have begun its journey not in Italy but thousands of miles away in ancient China, a new study suggests. What's more, the statue may not depict a lion exactly, per PhysOrg. Archaeologists from the University of Padua analyzed lead isotopes from a restoration in 1990 and traced the sculpture's copper ore all the way to the Yangtze River basin—a finding that upends earlier theories placing the statue's origins in a Venetian foundry or in Syria. Based on that, researchers suggest it was originally created as a tomb guardian from Chinese lore known as a zhenmushou.
"These hybrid creatures share leonine muzzles, flaming manes, horns and raised wings attached to the shoulders, pointed upraised ears and, sometimes, partially humanized facial features," according to the study in the journal Antiquity. The statue may have been modified to look more like lion for its new perch in Venice, though how and why it made the journey over the Silk Road remains unclear. One theory, however, involves a famous last name.
Researchers say Venetian merchants Niccolo and Maffeo Polo—father and uncle to Marco Polo—might have acquired it while trading at the Mongol court in Beijing around 1265. Venice adopted the lion as its symbol soon after that, and the theory suggests the Polos repurposed the Chinese guardian as a winged lion fit for the republic. Either way, "it's a rather extraordinary discovery," Hannah Skoda of the University of Oxford, who was not involved in the study, tells NBC News. "At the same time, it is indicative of the sheer extent and intensity of global trading networks, even in this really early period."
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
