On December 25, 2021 (this Saturday) at 19:00, the "National Treasures Exhibition season" will come to an end on the CCTV Variety Channel of China Central Radio and Television Corporation. In this issue, curators from 30 participating museums across the country will gather together to unveil the special exhibition of "National Treasures" cultural relics. At the same time, 30 curators will also bring "thick earth cubes" collected from important local archaeological sites to jointly build the "Why China" installation on the spot to launch the special exhibition.
Xiao Haiming, director of the Guangdong Provincial Museum, collected soil from the Shixia Site in Qujiang District, Shaoguan City, Guangdong Province, an important archaeological site in South China, and participated in the launching ceremony of the special exhibition with the precious cultural relics "Tang Monks Taking Sutras and Pillows".
The Guangdong Provincial Museum collects soil from the Shixia site of Qujiang, Guangdong
From 1973 to 1978, three archaeological excavations were carried out at the Shixia site in Qujiang District, Shaoguan City, Guangdong Province, and a large number of remains such as house sites, ash pits and kiln sites were found, 132 tombs were cleaned up, and more than 10,000 artifacts of various types were unearthed. These findings provide extremely important and typical physical materials for studying the cultural connotation, chronology and relationship with other cultures from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age in Guangdong, and for exploring the social and historical issues such as the disintegration and phased development process of primitive society in China, and are also important physical evidence for exploring the social and cultural development of Lingnan from primitive society to before the Qin and Han dynasties. The site was rated as one of the 100 major archaeological discoveries in China in the 20th century, and is an important harvest of archaeology in South China.
Xiao Haiming collected soil from the Shixia site in Qujiang, Guangdong Province, and jointly built the "Why China" installation
Precious Cultural Relics of Guangdong Provincial Museum——
"Tang monks take the scriptures to pillow" and "Song Jinxiang ornaments" will enter Beijing to participate in the exhibition
The Tang monk's porcelain pillow is a representative work of the Cizhou kiln in the Yuan Dynasty. This porcelain pillow is not only a practical object of daily life, but also an extremely exquisite ceramic handicraft. Paintings and decorative motifs have both the characteristics of flower and bird paintings and the depiction of folk mythological stories. In particular, the story of the Tang monks drawing on the pillow provides valuable information for the study of the writing process of China's famous mythological novel "Journey to the West".
The theme of the Tang monks taking the scriptures appears on the paintings of the porcelain pillows of the Cizhou kiln, indicating that the story of the sutra collection at that time had been widely circulated. On the picture, Sun Wukong has not yet worn a tiger skin skirt, the Eight Precepts of the Pig have not yet had a big belly and no luggage; the sand monk is holding an umbrella, not holding a treasure staff. These are still some distance from the images in the Journey to the West written by Wu Cheng'en in the Ming Dynasty, which reflects the storyline and character images of the Tang monks after the Yuan Dynasty. This is one of the early images of the Tang monks' sutras that have survived to the present day, which not only reflects the superb artistic achievements of folk porcelain painters, but also is a physical evidence of reference value for studying the history of the novel "Journey to the West".
Tang monks take the sutra to pillow Yuan Guangdong Provincial Museum collection
The Song gold necklace is woven from four strands of eight gold threads and has a square cross-section. The hook is a long strip with a raised middle and pattern, with four small rings at one end that can be used to adjust the elasticity. As the first gold vessel to emerge from the water of the Nanhai I shipwreck, the Song gold necklace carries more than 800 years of history. Song Jinxiang ornaments are simple in shape and exquisite in craftsmanship, although they have sunk into the sea for nearly a thousand years, they are still dazzling. Its craftsmanship is not traditional Chinese, suggesting that the shipwreck may have been related to overseas trade activities.
Nanhai I is a relatively complete Song Dynasty shipwreck found at present, and the types and number of cultural relics are very large. Among them, the largest number is export porcelain, accounting for about 90% of the current water cultural relics, including Jingdezhen kiln, Longquan kiln, Dehua kiln and other kilns of porcelain, different styles and shapes, are customized for overseas markets. Other excavated artifacts include copper and iron, gold and silver, lacquered wood and many more. Song gold necklaces are only an ordinary cultural relic, and a large number of other gold necklaces, gold rings and other various jewelry are very exquisite. After measurement, the gold content of these gold jewelry basically reached 95%-98%.
Song Jinxiang as Song Guangdong Provincial Museum Collection
A national treasure ID card is made around the cultural relics of the museum, "The Great Shrine of Golden Lacquer Wood Carving"
While inviting the vast number of literary and art workers and enthusiasts to create and perform "literary and art exhibits", the "National Treasures Exhibition and Performance Season" also sent another team to various places to re-visit the museums since the three seasons of "National Treasures" and assist the curators in making different national treasure IDENTITies for the special exhibition.
Baozheng is the product of the collision of cultural relics with intangible cultural heritage elements and folk customs in various places. In Foshan, based on the guangdong provincial museum cultural relics gold lacquer wood carving shrine as the creative basis, the integration of lingnan lion dance culture, and combined with the national intangible cultural heritage Caizha (Foshan lion head) production process, Director Xiao Haiming and CCTV host Veneina together for this special exhibition to produce a national treasure "IDENTITY card" - Caizha lion head, will be accompanied by the Guangdong Provincial Museum selected cultural relics "Tang monks to take the sutra pillow" and "Song Jin Xiang ornaments" in the "National Treasure" cultural relics special exhibition.
Director Xiao Haiming and CCTV host Veneer worked together to make a national treasure ID card for the cultural relics in the collection of cultural relics "Golden Lacquer Wood Carving Shrine": Caizha Lion Head
Nandu reporter Zhu Rongting