Wooden statue of Kannon replaced with fake

A historical wooden statue held by a temple in Shizuoka Prefecture seems to have been stolen and replaced with a cheap fake:

Local police began investigating the case on suspicion of theft since the lock of a side entrance to the temple was found damaged.

A multi-armed statue of the Goddess of Kannon, or “Senju Kannon” in Japanese, was found missing from Hozoji Temple in Shimada by a supporter of the Soto sect temple at around 10 a.m. on Monday.

The 101-centimeter-tall statue, which had been placed in the Kannon hall next to the main hall at the temple, was replaced with a two-armed, 60-centimeter-tall wooden statue sprayed in gold.

The original multi-armed statue was made during the Muromachi Period (1336-1573) and was designated as the city’s cultural item in 1984.

The figure is usually stored in a miniature shrine deep inside Kannon hall, but was slated to be subject to exposition in 2009 — an event that comes only once every 60 years.

FTV’s report on the story (embedded in the top of this post) reveals that that the temple in question didn’t have much protection for the statue, while other temples containing valuable statues use special security systems.