China's five-thousand-year history has left many precious cultural treasures, and most of the cultural relics in the present world so far have basically been restored, but some cultural relics, even modern technology can not be restored, the three "national treasures" that exist on the mainland, the stunning four sides have been lost.
One: Western Han Dynasty straight-sleeved plain gauze (dān) clothing
In 1972, the plain gauze shirt was excavated from the No. 1 Han Tomb of Mawangdui in Changsha City, Hunan Province, which immediately caused a sensation in the cultural relics community. In addition to the collar and cuff edges decorated with brocade, the whole dress is made of plain yarn, woven from fine silk, and made of square hole plain weave interwoven with single warp and single weft silk.
The whole body weight of the plain gauze jacket is only 49 grams, as thin as a cicada wing, and its superb production skills also represent the highest level of silkworm raising, silk reeling and weaving technology in the early Western Han Dynasty, and it is also the earliest, most complete, most refined and lightest piece of clothing in the world.
Mainland silk since the opening of the Silk Road to the world, and in the international reputation, China in ancient times was also called by Western countries as "silk country", but modern industrial silk is rarely 100% full silk products.
During the Qin and Han dynasties, plain yarn was a very popular clothing material for summer clothes and shirts, and it was also the lightest fabric, but it was also because of its unique weaving process, so it has been a valuable cloth for the upper class since ancient times.
After the unearthing of the plain gauze shirt, there are also research institutes that have copied it, but the most outstanding replica is also 49.5 grams, which takes 13 years, and other aspects are incomparable, so the plain gauze shirt has also become a unique silk product in the world, and it is one of the first cultural relics on the mainland that are forbidden to go abroad (border) for exhibition.
Two: Longshan culture eggshell black pottery cup
The eggshell black pottery cup belongs to Neolithic pottery, excavated from the Longshan Cultural Site in Shandong, and its shape is divided into three parts, the upper part is a small cup with an open luxury along the deep abdomen, the middle part is a hollow stalk belly, and the lower part is a raspberry-like base, connected by a slender tube into a unified whole.
"Eggshell pottery" is the name of the later generations, because the pottery cup is clay black pottery, the thickness of the cup wall is uniform, as thin as the eggshell, and the thinnest place is only 0.2 to 0.3 mm, so it is named. The eggshell black pottery cup is also the pinnacle of the ancient pottery art of the mainland, and is praised by the archaeological community as "the most exquisite production of the earth civilization four thousand years ago", and no matter how exquisite the pottery artist's technology is, it is impossible to reproduce a pottery cup exactly the same as the "eggshell pottery".
Three: The Western Han Dynasty "See the Light of the Sun" mirror
The copper mirror is round in shape, with a radius of 3.7 cm, a diameter of 7.4 cm, and an overall net weight of about 50 grams. Although the appearance looks no different from the general copper mirror, when the sunlight shines on the mirror surface, the reflection is projected onto the wall, and the pattern and inscription on the back of the copper mirror will appear in the light spot on the wall, which is also the most peculiar place of the "light of the sun" mirror, so it is also called "lens".
In addition, there is an inscription on the outside of the pattern on the back of the bronze mirror: "See the light of the sun, the world is bright." However, when the "Light of the Sun" mirror was transmitted to the Song Dynasty, its manufacturing skills were lost, and no one has been able to create an identical bronze mirror since then, which is now in the Shanghai Museum.
In fact, if we carefully study the rare kui treasure left in ancient times, we can see that it is very simple and close to the most primitive side, and this part is the most difficult to restore by modern technology.