:ema: I can show you the contradiction with high school geometry and high school chemistry!

Let's guess that the hollow statue contains about as much gold as a cylinder one foot tall (about 30 centimeters), 6 to 7 inches in diameter (about 16 cm), and one centimeter thick.

That seems like an underestimate to me.

Then we'll get a conservative answer. That's fine! Now, watch the power of SCIENCE!

The volume of that hollow cylinder is: PI * (49 - 36 square cm.) * (30 cm). That's (scribble, scribble) over 1,200 cubic centimeters!

... yes, the numbers work.

And the density of gold is about nineteen or twenty grams per cubic centimeter - almost twice as heavy as lead!

So... the hollow statue would weigh 2,700 times about 20 grams... that's over 24,000 grams, or 24 kg... that's over 50 pounds!

OVER FIFTY POUNDS FOR A HOLLOW STATUE?!

Yep! The statues can't possibly be made of gold, no matter what the Ambassadors say! The one that wasn't hollow would be impossible to move without a wheelbarrow!

What if they were made of brass coated with a thin layer of gold?

That's still heavy. The hollow one would weigh over 20 pounds if the shell were 1 cm thick, and a shell any thinner would give it away.

Then...
aluminum?! 
... hmm. If they were made of aluminum coated in gold, then even the solid one would only weigh about twenty pounds!

... I can see now why both countries would want to keep this a secret.