Over the past five thousand years in China, there have been many national treasure-level cultural relics, and now most of them are lying in museums all over China, but many cultural materials have fallen to the people and overseas, and some are still missing.
Among these unaccounted for cultural relics, there are four of the most regrettable national treasures: the Peking Man's Skull, Dayu's Jiuzhou Ding, Qin Shi Huang's Chuanguo Jade Seal, and the Yuanmingyuan Zodiac Beast Head Bronze Statue.
First of all, let's talk about the Peking Man skull: In the winter of 1929, archaeologists excavated in Zhoukoudian in the southwest corner of Beijing and found some complete ape man skulls dating back about 600,000 years ago, also known as the Peking Man Skull, which was officially named "
Chinese ape man Beijing
", scientifically often called "
Beijing Homo erectus
", belongs to the Paleolithic.
This discovery is an important milestone in the history of China's paleoanthropology, and as soon as the news was announced, it immediately shocked the world. Some experts estimate that its value is more than tens of billions, but its true academic value cannot be measured in money.
Later, this Peking man skull has been preserved in the American-funded Union Hospital for academic research by the German paleoanthropologist Wei Dunrui.
After the Japanese occupation of Peiping in 1941, in order to protect the Peking man skull, after the Chongqing Nationalist government made it clear, the Peking man skull was handed over to the U.S. Marine Corps that was about to leave Beijing and withdraw to the United States, and they brought it back to the American Museum of Natural History for temporary storage. However, due to the subsequent outbreak of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese army captured the American soldiers, and the whereabouts of the Peking man skull have been unknown ever since.
Dayu's Kyushu Dading: Legend has it that in the early years of the Xia Dynasty, Dayu divided the world into Kyushu, and set up the highest military and political chief in each state, calling it "
State Shepherd
”。 Later, in order to show his great deeds, Xia Qi, the son of Dayu, ordered Jiuzhou Mu to contribute bronze and cast Jiuding, which were: Jiding, Yanding, Qingding, Xuding, Yangding, Jingding, Yuding, Liangding, and Yongding.
It is said that before casting Jiuding, Xia Qi sent people to draw atlases of famous mountains and rivers, scenic spots, and strange objects in various states across the country, and then sent selected famous craftsmen to imitate these paintings on the body of Jiuding, symbolizing a state with a ding, and the engraved figures also reflected the shape of the mountains and rivers in the state.
Since then, these nine dings have been regarded as the national treasures of the Chinese nation. In terms of craft aesthetics, it is a set of rare works, in terms of cultural archaeology, it is a concentrated representative of China's bronze age, from the perspective of casting technology, it marks that China's history has ended the barbaric era and entered the era of civilization.
However, later, after the Qin army captured The King of Luodong Zhou, he fell into Weishui on the way from Weishui to Xianyang, and his whereabouts are unknown!
Qin Shi Huang's Heirloom Jade Seal: It is said that Li Si, the chancellor of the Qin Dynasty, was engraved with the Heshi Bi at the behest of the First Emperor, which is a testimony to the orthodox emperors of chinese dynasties. It is four inches in circumference, with five dragons on the upper button, and the front is engraved with the book of Li Si"
Ordained by heaven, he will live forever
"Eight seal characters, to act as"
Imperial power is granted and orthodoxy is legal
"A relic.
Later, in the twenty-eighth year of the reign of the Qin Dynasty (
219 BC
Qin Shi Huang took a dragon boat across Dongting Lake, the wind and waves suddenly rose, the dragon boat will fall, Qin Shi Huang hurriedly threw the Chuanguo Jade Seal into the lake, praying for the gods to calm the waves, so that the Jade Seal was lost. However, eight years later, someone in Huayin Pingshu Dao offered this chuanguo seal again, and the chuanguo jade seal was returned to Qin.
Later, Liu Bang, the Duke of Pei, invaded Xianyang, and the Prince of Qin presented the jade seal to Liu Bang, and from then on, the jade seal became the national seal of the Han Dynasty.
Since then, the jade seal has been passed on among successive dynasties until the first year of Song Jingkang (
1126 AD
), the Jin soldiers broke the Liang, and the Second Emperor Hui Qin was plundered,"
Pass on the National Seal
"It was plundered by the Jin Dynasty, and since then it has disappeared, and there is still no trace, which is sighing."
Bronze statue of the head of the zodiac beast in the Yuanmingyuan: Originally part of the fountain outside the Haiyan Hall in the Yuanmingyuan, it is a red bronze statue from the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, which was designed by the Court Western painter Lang Shining, an Italian.
It is said that Lang Shining originally wanted to build a nude female sculpture with Western characteristics, but the Qianlong Emperor felt that this was contrary to Chinese ethics and morality, so he ordered a redesign. So Lang Shining took into account The Chinese folk culture and replaced the human sculpture commonly used in Western fountain design with a seated statue of the Zodiac.
These twelve bronze zodiac statues are all beast heads, the head is copper, all are finely carved, and they are the best in Qing Dynasty bronzes; their bodies are stone, hollow and connected to water sprinklers, and every other hour (
Two hours
), representing the life portrait of the hour, it sprays water from the mouth; at noon, the twelve portraits simultaneously gush out the fountain, which is a spectacle.
However, in 1860, the head of the zodiac was plundered by the British and French forces and exiled in all directions, of which the bronze statues of cattle, monkeys, tigers and pigs had returned to China; the bronze statue of the horse head was purchased by the Macao businessman Ho Hung Sun in 2003 and donated to the country; the rat and rabbit heads were donated to China free of charge by the French Pino family; the dragon heads were said to be stored in Taiwan; as for the snake heads, chicken heads, dog heads, and sheep heads, the whereabouts are still unknown.