THE Menin Gate Lions have travelled from the Australian War Memorial in Canberra to their original home in Ypres, Belgium, in time for Anzac Day commemorations and the centenary of the battle of Passchendaele.
The two stone guardian lions carved from limestone were gifted to Australia from the town of Ypres after World War I as a gesture of friendship and appreciation.
They will sit before the Menin Gate until November before returning to Australia.
The lions originally stood on plinths on either side of the Menin Gate - one of only two entries into the medieval fortified city. It was through this gate that allied soldiers, including Australians, marched to the battlefields of the Ypres salient between 1914 and 1918.
After the war, the Menin Gate was chosen as the site for a memorial to the thousands of allied soldiers who were killed in the area but had no known grave. The memorial, which opened in 1927, is inscribed with the names of 54,900 dead from Britain and Commonwealth countries.
The lions had been toppled from their plinths by the shellfire which, during the course of the war, had reduced much of the city to rubble.
Both lions were deeply chipped across their backs. One had lost its right foreleg. The other had been badly damaged on one side of its head, and major damage elsewhere had reduced it to only a head and trunk ending just below the ribcage.
The lions were restored in Australia.
The In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres is hosting a small exhibition on the history of the lions from now until November.
