China debuted seven stone pillars looted by foreign troops over 160 years ago from the Old Summer Palace in Beijing to the public at its original home on Friday.

The pillars are the new batch of relics with significant values returned to the Old Summer Palace following the return of the bronze horse head sculpture in 2020.

Made of white marble, the seven pillars are about 80-92 centimeters tall with carved decoration features in good quality.

The front decorations of these stone pillars are mainly carvings in Western-style patterns such as freesia and shells. On the side of the pillars, there are carved vases holding bouquets of Chinese traditional flowers such as peonies, magnolias, lotuses and chrysanthemums with auspicious meanings. Some carvings including the curling cloud on the plinth resembled China's ancient architecture approach. The pillars represented an ingenious combination of Chinese and Western culture.

It is speculated that they all come from the Xiyang Lou area (Western Mansions) in the north of the Old Summer Palace.

The wooden beams and columns have been used to build up the Xiyang Lou buildings at the Old Summer Palace. Its interior walls were built with bricks and the exterior was covered with stone materials such as white marble.

The stone pillars were usually installed as posts or railing connections, as well as decorations. The pillars without carvings on both sides function as decor for the building while pillars with carvings were used for stairs or platforms, whose carving patterns matched with the shape of the railing.

The pillars have been returned to China ten years ago from a collection of the KODE Art Museums of Bergen, a museum in Norway.