The two mysterious bronze statues unearthed in central China's Henan Province in the 1980s was found to be Eros, the Greek God of Love, an archaeologist said Tuesday.

The two statues, which can be dated back to around 500 AD, were about 5 centimeters high, each with two holes on both sides, suggesting that they may have been used as pendants.

The statues bore apparent similarity with Eros in appearance as they both featured baby-faced boys with wings, said Huo Hongwei, a scholar with National Museum of China.

British archaeologist Aurel Stein proved in 1907 that several winged angels in the mural paintings in a monastery in west China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region were drawings of Eros at around 200 A.D.

Huo argued that similarity in details between the statues and the paintings prove that the statues are made after the image of Eros.

The statues' wings lift upward at the tips, which is very unusual among Chinese gods but the same with those of the Eros on the mural paintings, Huo said.

The curly hair of the statues and that of the Eros on the paintings were almost identical, he added.

Chinese scholars are looking for similar images or miniatures of Eros along the Silk Road to track the route that carried Greek culture to ancient China, Huo said.

Huo is now writing a thesis proving the identity of the statues.

(Xinhua News Agency December 1, 2009)