As a good friend of Liu, Gomez is a devoted protector of Chinese relics. He once sold his house to purchase a precious Chinese bronze relic which is now kept in a Xi'an museum, a city famous for its ancient terra cotta warriors and horses.

In the application to the Paris court, Ren requested that the French Government and culture department protect the statues while they were still in that country. "If the auction could be stopped and they were sent to the collection of the French Government, we could resort to diplomatic methods to get them back," said Ren.

There are three ways for China to retrieve their lost treasures overseas: buying them back; as a donation; and claiming them through legal channels. The five animal sculptures that have been retrieved were bought and returned.

"The collectors insisted on auctioning the two relics to make big money from them," said Xie Tongxiang, one of the lawyers' group.

China had also made it clear that it did not want to purchase the two lost treasures as they had been illegally looted in the first place.

"The illegally obtained Chinese relics always bear blemishes on them. The scars of historic plundering can never be worn away," said the deputy head of Chinese Society of Cultural Relics Li Xiaodong, who believes the best option for the two sides is to sit down and negotiate.

On this issue, any country should make its stance clear and maintain the right to reclaim its lost treasures, said Li. These methods need a unified plan and take time. "During the first phase, it is better done by nongovernmental organizations. Once governments get involved, things could get more complicated," Li said.

China has given much attention to the issue of retrieving lost treasures and has been doing research on the subject, Li said.

As leader of the lawyers' group, which includes almost 90 members, the 53-year-old Liu has some experience on these issues. He tried to reclaim two heads of Luoyang Longmen Grottoes' Buddha sculptures from an American whose forefathers goaded two farmers to steal them in the 1930s. Though the case failed, Liu made up his mind to embark on the road of retrieving lost Chinese treasures.

"We feel the thing is beyond our abilities and we need help," said Liu. According to group member Zhang Shenggui, Liu is running the case by himself while the other lawyers are giving moral assistance. "Having the guts to file the lawsuit is making a clear stance. As for the result, that's another issue," Zhang said.

The 12 Bronze Zodiac Animals The Chinese zodiac animals are 12 animals which represent years in China. Each animal has a different personality and different characteristics. These 12 animals are: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. Designed by European missionaries serving the Qing Dynasty at the time, the 12 bronze animals were part of the Haiyantang water clock situated in the Garden of Eternal Spring. The 12 bronze heads represented the 12 signs of the Chinese zodiac, with the main bodies carved out of stone and heads cast from bronze. The animals spouted water to tell the time in a fountain created for the Emperor Qianlong (1711-99). The recovered five heads-monkey, ox, tiger, horse and pig-are housed at the Poly Art Museum in Beijing. The rabbit and rat are part of a private European collection in France. The whereabouts of the other five are unknown.