THE famed “Lion of Venice” has stood in St Mark’s Square for hundreds of years – and now scientists have made a baffling discovery about its origins.

A new study has revealed the ancient three-ton bronze statue travelled all the way from China – and is at least 1,000-years-old.

Researchers from the University of Padua have discovered the unlikely origins of the lion.

They believe it came from the Tang dynasty (618-907) in Yangtze River basin in China.

The discovery has been more than 30 years and 6,000 miles in the making.

The analysis of the statue’s materials connected the lion to Chinese copper ore deposits.

Researchers took the opportunity to take samples of the statue when it was being restored between 1985 and 1990.

Lead archaeologist on the research team Mᴀssimo Vidale said: “This is a very refined chemical analysis which measures the relative proportion between different isotopes of lead.

“The specific proportion between different isotopes is a kind of ID card that pinpoints precisely in the world the location of the mine from which the copper was extracted.”

It was previously thought that the statue originated from a Near Eastern Anatolian source between roughly the 4th and 3rd centuries B.C.E.

However, Vidale never truly believed the statue came from the Hellenistic period.

He said: “I always had the impression that the lion was a Chinese hybrid, a deeply manipulated Chinese statue.”

“Now, we have solved for good, a long-inherited archaeological riddle and the stylistic and chemical data are in perfect agreement with the hypothesis that the Venice Lion was made in China.”

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However, one mystery still remains – how did the three ton winged lion statue make its way from China to Venice.

According to records famous Venetian explorer Marco Polo returned from a place he called Cathay in 1295.

From there, he brought back sublime tales of another world such as paper money, a burning black stone (coal), and precious spices such as pepper, nutmeg, and cloves.

The explorer was known to travel through Asia on the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295.

Despite this, the lion pre-dates Marco Polo’s famed travels.

The winged lion became the official symbol of Venice between 1261 and 1264 and although it is unknown precisely when the statue was mounted in St. Mark’s Square.