Why China? It is the bronze heavy instrument He Zun, and the word "China" appearing in the inscription inside the Zunnei is the earliest seen so far, more than 3,000 years ago; it is the "King of Fang Xuan" Dish Fang Zhen, which has touched countless people by walking home for nearly a hundred years; it is also the "Hu people" who sat on the "camel" and ate cakes for more than 1400 years, more than 1400 stars carefully observed and recorded by people during the Southern Song Dynasty, and Ji Yunkai's "Concise Catalogue of the Complete Books of the Four Libraries of The King"... On January 25, the "Why China" exhibition in the Wenhua Hall of the Palace Museum was unveiled, and more than 130 cultural relics selected by 30 museums across the country gave their answers.
In the exhibition hall, the cultural relics from the Upper Stone Age and down to the Qing Dynasty regard the long-standing and profound Chinese civilization as a big river, and use the three units of "source", "flow" and "convergence" to show the charm of Chinese civilization and tell Chinese stories. As the opening exhibition of the Forbidden City, the exhibition will last until the beginning of May.
Textbooks Chinese are piled up
Cultural relics from textbooks such as the Sanxingdui Bronze Sun Wheel, He Zun, Changxin Palace Lamp, Jin Ou Yonggu Cup, and the Tibetan "Four Medical Classics" are illuminated. More than 130 precious cultural relics include stone tools, ceramics, jade, bronze, gold and silver, calligraphy and painting, ancient books, seals, etc. Zhao Zengjian, a staff member of the Cultural Relics Management Department of the Palace Museum, said that due to the environmental restrictions of the exhibition hall, most of the paper and silk cultural relics are reproductions.
In the exhibition hall, the cultural relics in the three central display cabinets can be regarded as the most important. He Zun occupies the "C position". "There is a 122-character inscription on the bottom of this bronze vessel, which probably means that King Cheng of Zhou inherited the legacy of King Wu and built the eastern capital Luoyi (present-day Luoyang, Henan), and the Zhou Dynasty nobleman He was rewarded with 30 Pangbei coins because his father had followed King Wu for his merits. He returned home and cast a tribute to commemorate this incident. Zhao Zengjian, a staff member of the Cultural Relics Management Office of the Palace Museum, introduced that the inscription "House In China" means that "China" is a capital city built in this place. This is the earliest known word for "China", although it refers to Luoyang and the surrounding area at the time.
The other two heavy cultural relics are the Jade Dragon excavated from Yuhang Anti-Mountain in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, and the Jade Dragon from the Palace Museum.
The exhibition will also continue to welcome new "guests". Zhao Zengjian said that due to the impact of the new crown epidemic, some museum cultural relics in Henan Province and Shaanxi Province could not be exhibited at the opening ceremony, and will be supplemented in the future according to the situation.
"Fakes" attract attention through creativity
There are also some historical "fakes" that rely on creativity to attract attention. Ten of the bronzes, once in the old collection of the Forbidden City, were sent away as gifts by the Qianlong Emperor and returned home for the first time in more than 200 years. This group of cultural relics is arranged in a row, the shape of the vessel is simple, the ornamentation is exquisite, and each piece is equipped with a wooden base.
Qianlong went to the Confucius Temple 8 times to worship. The fifth time, he felt that the ceremonial vessels placed were made in the Eastern Han Dynasty, not far enough in age and not elegant enough in appearance, so he carefully selected 10 Zhou Dynasty ceremonial vessels from his inner library and gave them to the Confucius Temple to express his respect for culture. Ma Lin, a staff member of the Artifacts Department of the Palace Museum, explained with a smile that in fact, Qianlong had also lost his sight, and some of the utensils inside were from the Shang Dynasty. Therefore, this group of utensils was named Shang Zhou Ten Offerings.
Another forgery is a Ming Dynasty "Zhao Mengfu" painting. In the picture, Confucius wears a ceremonial crown and a Xuan robe, and the two disciples, Yan Hui and Zeng Shan, stand around. If you look closely, the ornaments on the clothes of the three people are the Analects copied in small letters with the head of the fly. "Zhao Mengfu was a Yuan Dynasty calligrapher, and it is obvious that the author is an impostor." But the combination of calligraphy, painting and Confucian classics is a unique and stylistic one, Malin said.
"Accidental" artifacts tell the story of mutual learning
Sun Wukong walked at the front of the line carrying a golden hoop stick, followed by the slim Pig Eight Precepts, the rich Tang monk, and the sand monk with vivid facial expressions. This scene is frozen on a white glazed brown pillow of the Yuan Dynasty Cizhou kiln about 40 centimeters long. "There was this picture before, and only then did we now know wu Cheng'en's Journey to the West in the Ming Dynasty." The curator explained that the rudimentary form of the story of "Journey to the West" is the "Records of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty", and there are also depictions of Xuanzang's journey to the west in the documents and grottoes excavated in Dunhuang. "It is rare for such a neat four-person depiction, and it can be seen that their image is slightly different from the shape we are familiar with now."
In fact, Chinese civilization began with a trickle, a million years of human history, 10,000 years of cultural history, and a history of 5,000 years of civilization have successively originated, and ethnic integration, exchanges and mutual learning have gathered the essence and benefited the world. The "unexpected" cultural relics in the exhibition hall are the best proof.
The Hu people eat cake figurines were unearthed from the tomb of Huo Luche in Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province, and the well-known "Song of Shule" was first sung by the great-grandfather of the tomb owner. The golden steps swayed like a tree, and the small gold leaves were crumbling, some of which had fallen off. This flower-tree-like crown originated in West Asia, spread southward through the Central Asian steppe Silk Road in the Han Dynasty, and spread south with the northern nomads, and was quite popular in the western Liaoning region. afterward. This crown spread to the Korean Peninsula and Japan, and is an important witness to national integration and cultural exchanges.
The last exhibit of the exhibition is quite large- the Wenyuan Pavilion on the north side of the Mandarin Hall. In response, the curator cleverly designated the last cultural relic in the exhibition hall of the Mandarin Hall as the "Four Libraries of the Whole Book". Wenyuan Pavilion is the largest royal library in the Qing Palace, which was completed in the 41st year of Qianlong and collected here after the completion of the first "Four Libraries Complete Book".