On the main altar stood a crude replica of the Zhanggong Patriarch, dark gray instead of gold, overlooking a table where residents had laid out evidence to support their claim to the statue: several photos of it taken in 1989 and the clothes that had adorned the figure and were left behind by whoever made off with it in 1995. A faded gold crown sat among the rags.

Villagers acknowledged that it was difficult to say that the statue in their photos was an exact match with the one exhibited in Hungary because the Zhanggong Patriarch was rarely displayed in their temple without clothes or a crown. Still, they are convinced they have the right mummy.

“To us, Zhanggong Patriarch is not a cultural relic,” said Lin Wenqing, 39, who returned from selling tea in the southern region of Guangxi when he heard the statue had been found. “We see him as family. He is one of us.”

Before its theft, residents prayed to the Zhanggong Patriarch at every important event in the village, including the harvest. Once a year, they took the statue down from the altar and paraded it through the village, visiting each house. And on the fifth day of the 10th lunar month — believed to be the mummified monk’s birthday — the village celebrated with a festival featuring performances and a bountiful vegetarian feast.

These traditions appear to go back centuries, passed down from generation to generation along with tales of the patriarch as a boy with the surname Zhang who moved to the village with his mother, worked as a cowherd and became a monk.

“They always told us that he lived during the Song dynasty,” said Lin Chengfa, 44, “and that inside the statue was his mummified corpse.”