Wang Xinyuan, | of Archaeological Culture and Tourism: How does the map of the Silk Road World Heritage Connect Ancient and Modern China and Foreign Countries?
China News Service, Beijing, December 21 Title: Wang Xinyuan: How does the Silk Road World Heritage Map connect ancient and modern China and foreign countries?
China News Service reporter Sun Zifa
As the world's largest linear cultural heritage, how many World Heritage sites are distributed on the Silk Roads? What kind of history and environmental changes do they record? What is the implication for peace in today's world and the future development of mankind? And how to revitalize and use its thousands of years of historical and cultural heritage?
From the "Silk Road World Cultural Heritage Storage Environment Map" (referred to as the Silk Road World Heritage Map) jointly compiled and published by the Institute of Aerospace Information Innovation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Xi'an Map Publishing House, these questions may find ideas and answers.
Deputy Director of UNESCO's International Space Technology Center for Natural and Cultural Heritage (HIST), Editor-in-Chief of the Silk Road World Heritage Map, and Researcher Wang Xinyuan of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing recently said in an exclusive interview with The China News Agency's "East and West Questions" that the Silk Road World Heritage Map presents neither a general map of heritage sites nor a simple thematic map, but hopes to link and display the world cultural heritage of Asia, Europe, Africa and other continents in the overall pattern and historical framework of the land and maritime Silk Roads, with the existing environment. Activate it.
Wang Xinyuan was interviewed by China News Agency in Beijing to introduce the "Map of the Environment for the Preservation of World Cultural Heritage on the Silk Road" compiled and published by the latest research. Photo by Sun Zifa, a reporter from China News Service
What kind of road was the Silk Road?
"There is no road in the world that can match the Silk Road." Wang Xinyuan pointed out that the Silk Road was a road network system composed of the ancient overland Silk Road and the Maritime Silk Road, and was the "arterial vascular system" of the world's logistics system and the "central nervous system" of information transmission at that time. The Silk Road is also the road of exchange, the road of exploration, the road of faith and the road of development of the ancients, which exchanged goods, communicated culture, developed the economy and promoted prosperity.
This great and thick road of human civilization has communicated the ancient Chinese civilization, the Indus river civilization, the Mesopotamian civilization, the ancient Egyptian civilization and other exchanges, linking many nationalities and many regions, and connecting them into the backbone channels of international economic trade, scientific and technological and cultural exchanges and the dissemination of religious beliefs in the important development period of mankind for thousands of years.
Wang Xinyuan said that in 1877, the German geographer Richthofen proposed the concept of the "Silk Road" in his book "China", calling the trade and traffic routes between China's Chang'an and Central Asia the "Silk Road". Subsequently, the German scholar Hermann extended the end of the Silk Road to Syria and further expanded the basic connotation of the "Silk Road". In 1913, the French orientalist Sha Qi called the maritime trade and exchange routes between ancient China and foreign countries the "Maritime Silk Road". Nowadays, the "Silk Road", as a synonym for the ancient economic and trade exchanges and cultural exchange channels (routes) between the East and the West, is widely accepted by Chinese and foreign scholars, and is gradually familiar to the public.
In November 2021, in Beijing, citizens enjoyed the exhibition "Mo Gaosheng is Still There". The exhibition combines projection, sound and light and mural restoration to recreate the prosperity and splendor of Dunhuang and the "Silk Road" in an open way. Photo by China News Service reporter Hou Yu
Wang Xinyuan said that the newly published Silk Road World Heritage Map is the activation and display of the Silk Road, the time does not distinguish between those routes in history at different times, and the space is not limited to the Silk Road defined by Richthofen, but covers thousands of years of long-distance exchanges between the ancestors of Asia, Europe, Africa and other continents in production, culture and spiritual channels and road networks, including about 33,800 kilometers of grassland Silk Road, about 85,300 kilometers of desert or oasis Silk Road, The Southern Silk Road, about 10,700 kilometers, and the Maritime Silk Road, about 54,600 kilometers, have a total length of more than 180,000 kilometers.
Why study and compile a map of the Silk Road World Heritage?
Wang Xinyuan pointed out that today on the surface of the earth, it is actually difficult to see or identify the Silk Road of the past, this historical relic, in the past as transportation has produced great value, "today we re-propose, draw out, is to inherit its spiritual value, promote world peace and mutual understanding between peoples and various cultures."
Wang Xinyuan (front right) inspects Angkor Wat. China News Service issued by the interviewee Courtesy of the photo
Through the Silk Road, the ancestors of Asia, Europe, Africa and other continents have long carried out trade, cultural, scientific and technological exchanges at different distances. Existing archaeological data show that the grassland peoples began to communicate for a long distance tens of thousands of years ago with the help of horses, and the Ningxia Shuidonggou site found artifacts from the cultural characteristics of the northern grasslands 40,000 years ago. In various historical periods since the Neolithic Age, Chinese and foreign archaeology has found a large amount of evidence about the exchange of Eastern and Western civilizations on land and at sea.
Ningxia Shuidonggou site. Shuidonggou is one of the earliest excavated Paleolithic sites in China and is known as the "cradle of oriental prehistoric archaeology". Photo by Zhu Hongshan, China News Service
He said that the Silk Road has witnessed the process of human beings in the history of Asia, Europe, Africa and other continents from mutual isolation to exchange, convergence and development, and the cultural relics along the route carry the memory of material, cultural and spiritual exchanges between the East and the West. The total amount of cultural relics along the Silk Road is large, full of types and high grades, with diversified characteristics and diversified connotations. As the World Heritage Committee has said: The Silk Roads are a path of integration, exchange and dialogue between East and West, and have made an important contribution to the common prosperity of mankind for nearly two millennia.
Wang Xinyuan stressed that the Silk Road, which has existed for thousands of years, not only allows goods in different places to circulate, but also enables people in different regions to exchange ideas and wisdom. To protect this most magnificent human cultural heritage on earth, not only to protect its essence, but also to protect the environment closely related to it, in order to better understand the World Cultural Heritage of the Silk Road and propose more effective protection measures and methods.
Wang Xinyuan (left) conducts ground penetrating radar underground detection in Dunhuang, Gansu Province. China News Service issued by the interviewee Courtesy of the photo
He believes that in the thousands of years of history, the Silk Road has left a splendid and brilliant cultural heritage for human society, "the study and compilation of the map of the Silk Road Heritage, in-depth excavation of its historical and cultural values, enlightening people's thinking, for condensing our common wisdom and governing our common homeland, has important practical significance and far-reaching historical significance."
How does the Silk Road World Heritage map highlight the environment?
Wang Xinyuan explained that the "endowment environment" of the Silk Road World Cultural Heritage refers to the natural and social, economic and cultural environment on which the historical Silk Road was born, maintained and operated, and on which today's remnants exist. A specific natural environment gives birth to a corresponding human production activity, and a certain production activity forms a corresponding human way of life. The smooth operation of the Silk Road and the continuation and development of thousands of years depend on its natural and human environment.
The original "Silk Road Landscape Map Exhibition" photographed in Hong Kong in December 2018. Painted in the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty, the original site depicts a vast geographical area from Jiayu Pass in the east to Tianfang City (present-day Islamic holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia) in the east. Photo by China News Service reporter Zhang Wei
The Map of the Silk Road World Heritage is compiled in accordance with the new concept of joint protection of the World Heritage Ontology and the Existing Environment, combines the cultural heritage ontology with the endowment environment, concentrates on reflecting the superimposed connotation information of the Silk Road route and the background of the natural and humanistic environment, highlights the spatio-temporal exhibition and contact relationship between the key elements and derivative elements of the Silk Road, and then triggers the thinking of the potential risks faced by the Silk Road World Heritage and provides a new perspective for its protection.
He said that the map of the Silk Road World Heritage Includes the main map and the sub-map, and the scope of the map mainly includes Asia, Europe, Africa and Oceania. The main map consists of 1 base basemap and 4 thematic layers. The basemap is a fusion of satellite remote sensing imagery and DEM (Digital Elevation Model) imagery to represent the natural environment characteristics at different scales. The four thematic layers include heritage points, road networks, agricultural production areas and other humanities feature layers.
The layer of heritage sites is marked with dotted elements of 775 world cultural heritage sites and mixed heritage sites as of 2020, showing the cultural distribution and different regional backgrounds of the world today; the road network layer includes the grassland Silk Road, the overland Silk Road, the Southern Silk Road and the Maritime Silk Road, and the nodes in these road network systems are often important towns or ports at that time; the agricultural production area layer uses polygon elements to mark agricultural production areas such as planting and animal husbandry. It is intended to express the characteristics of the main production and lifestyle associated with the cultural heritage within the region; the other humanities elements layer selects the cultural areas related to the Silk Road, the Great Wall, the Grand Canal and even the eurasian land bridge as the elements of the cultural background to mark, expressing the ability of the Silk Road to continuously blend, inherit, succeed and sustain sustain development.
Wang Xinyuan (first from left) on a field trip to Tunisia. China News Service issued by the interviewee Courtesy of the photo
The sub-map "Silk Road: Road Network of the Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor" directly uses remote sensing images as the base map to show the close relationship between the nodes and the heritage body and the environment, especially the key sections of the Silk Road such as the desert section of the Silk Road with harsh natural environmental conditions, under the protection of the Great Wall military defense system, towns, stations and passes are set up along the route to ensure the supply of supplies and goods for business travelers, so as to realize the smooth operation of the entire Silk Road traffic route across the continent.
Wang Xinyuan said that today, the "Belt and Road" initiative has become the "link, bridge and cornerstone" of building a community with a shared future for mankind in the new era, and the Silk Road World Heritage Map is "integrated" under a time and space framework for the magnificent road network system formed over thousands of years, which will promote the further excavation of the historical connotation and practical significance of the ancient Silk Road, and promote the world to work together to solve many challenges such as climate change and epidemics. At the same time, it will also play an active role in carrying out comparative research on the history of the "Belt and Road", creating a discipline of spatial archaeology and digital heritage protection, and carrying out international exchanges on the Silk Road. (End)
Expert Profile:
Wang Xinyuan. Photo by Sun Zifa, a reporter from China News Service
Wang Xinyuan is a researcher and doctoral supervisor at the Institute of Aerospace Information Innovation, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Deputy Director of the International Centre for Natural and Cultural Heritage Space Technology (HIST) of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Chairman of the Digital Heritage Professional Committee of the Chinese National Committee of the International Digital Earth Society (ISDE), Co-Chair of the Digital Belt and Road Initiative (DBAR) World Heritage Working Group (DBAR-Heritage), Member of the International Association for the Conservation of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), Executive Director of the China Association for the Protection of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS-China). He is a member of the World Heritage Expert Committee of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration.
Wang Xinyuan is mainly engaged in research on digital natural and cultural heritage protection, space archaeology, etc., and undertakes more than 50 projects such as scientific and technological support, 863, national key research and development, international cooperation projects, national natural science foundation and major projects, and key projects of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage. He made more than ten major remote sensing archaeological discoveries in the Guazhou-Shazhou section of Gansu Province, China (2013) and the Tunis section of ancient Rome (2018) of the Silk Road, and was the first time that Chinese scientists have used space archaeology techniques to discover archaeological sites abroad. He has published more than 170 professional academic papers and 5 books.