近日，由八位专家组成的圆明园文物考察队顺利抵达美国，开始了在全球范围内对流失文物的追踪和记载工作。项目负责人表示，希望这次考察活动能为建立完整的圆明园流失文物数据库提供宝贵资料和线索。

    A team of eight art historians began a trip last Sunday to the United States in which they will search for historical artifacts believed to have been removed from the Old Summer Palace during the second Opium War. 

    The team includes researchers from Tsinghua University and the CCTV program “National Treasures.” The campaign is part of a larger push to recover items of historical importance that are currently held privately or on display outside of China. 

    "We hope to build a complete database of the Old Summer Palace’s lost relics so we can have a clearer view of the historical royal garden, then known as the ‘Garden of Gardens,’ before it was looted and burned down in 1860 by invading British and French armies,” said Chen Mingjie, director of the palace’s management office.

    The group will visit nine U.S. sites including the Library of Congress, the Freer Gallery of Art, Harvard University Library and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The team conducted initial research on potential items of interest prior to their journey.

    Significant numbers of the Old Summer Palace’s artifacts are believed to be held overseas, although the precise number is unknown and it remains unclear which items were burnt in the Old Summer Palace fire.