Why do so many artifacts end up in the West? This is actually a kind of plunder of culture, in fact, there is its very obvious timeliness, there are three special and more obvious time periods, we can actually grasp it, in fact, it should be four, but the fourth is not very public, so generally say three, the first is very clear to everyone, that is, the invasion of China by the Eight-Power Alliance in the late Qing Dynasty, a large number of invaders came to China after they found that because of China's geographical environment, in the previous 2,000 years we have given birth to countless brilliant empires. Whether it was the Han Empire, the Tang Empire, including the Song and Ming dynasties, all the way to Kang, the national strength of the Qian dynasty was very grand, and the accumulation of social wealth would also cause the eyes of these invaders to be red.
When the Eight-Nation Alliance first came, many of them were robbing some treasures, mainly gold and silver, but they found that in many palaces, the things robbed in the palace would have a large number of jade, so they also snatched back a lot of jade products, in fact, what we now call jadeite is called jadeite, and Tian jade is called nephrite, this statement is a scientist in France called De Mole, he is based on the eight-nation alliance from the Yuanmingyuan snatched jade, he went back to do a hardness test, divided into two kinds of hard, However, the name nephrite was actually translated from the Japanese, and he felt that the texture of Wada jade was relatively soft compared with jadeite, so he called Wada jade nephrite.
In fact, in our Chinese minds, we never call Hetian jade nephrite jade, because of the hardness of Hetian jade, it is a Swiss Army knife can not be slid, to some extent it is still very hard, and it does not bend, but because of the distinction between nephrite and jadeite, jadeite it has also entered the ranks of jade, otherwise in a way we call it jadeite, just like now we call agate Agate, it is just a mineral name, it can not be counted as the ranks of jade, because jadeite it belongs to the jewelry industry But because of the division of nephrite jade and jadeite, jadeite is also classified into the category of jade, which is actually a great help to jadeite, which means that in the end he directly entered a part of China's long 5,000-year-old cultural tradition, which has been of great help to all aspects of jadeite sales.
In addition to the Eight-Nation Alliance, there was also a time when the biggest loss of cultural relics was in the early years of the Republic of China, when the warlords were divided and the war was frequent, and a large number of tomb robberies in the country also occurred frequently, we are familiar with the Sun Dianying incident, in fact, before him, a large number of tombs in our country were almost completely emptied by foreign tomb robbers, because the country was still relatively poor during that period, and the regime was not very stable, and the warlords in various places were divided, so the management and protection of cultural relics were relatively weak. Moreover, a large number of Western cultural figures in that period entered the mainland as missionaries and came to China to search for treasures, including our Dunhuang, including some other places in the country, like Luoyang Jincun, many tombs were almost all lost to the West in that period, and a large number of cultural relics were lost to the West in turbulent times.
And at the beginning of the last century, some of the big chaebols and entrepreneurs in Europe have also begun, will be their excess funds to a large number of acquisition of oriental art, after the collection of them all donated to the local museum, or donated to the university, set up a special oriental museum, this we can go to check a lot of foreign museums Behind it there are funders, there are special donors, this kind of museum has also played a certain role in the protection of cultural relics, This method has also played some beneficial role in the protection and inheritance of cultural relics, so although many cultural relics have been lost overseas, they have been completely preserved by museums.
The third stage was actually in the late 60s to the early 70s, when the country's economy was also relatively poor, in order to strive for export earnings, especially we needed a lot of foreign exchange to improve the development of our military and industry, so at that time we confiscated during the movement, including some traditional buildings were also demolished, so we also accumulated a lot of things, in addition to a part of these things allocated to the local cultural relics department to set up a new museum, There are also a large part of the department almost assigned to the export of foreign exchange, at that time mainly friendship stores, there are some other departments, all as export foreign exchange in exchange for foreign exchange, there are a lot of things in foreign countries that everyone can see when they travel, are attached to the cultural relics export label, are sold by the domestic export units.
In addition to these three stages, there is a fourth stage that can not be put on the official face, in fact, after the 80s and the early 90s, from this period there have been a large number of tomb robberies and smuggling of cultural relics, but this data can not be counted, but from some foreign private collectors' collection exhibitions can be seen, in fact, the number of cultural relics lost at this stage is also amazing, due to the above reasons, it has also caused a status quo, that is, cultural relics that are sometimes seen abroad. More than the domestic cultural relics to see more, but this kind of thing should also be objectively analyzed, calmly viewed, not necessarily all things are genuine are good, and there are many things are also some defective products, even some modified parts, so in foreign treasure hunting, in foreign countries to pick up leaks also have to worry about traps, in short, our purpose is to let the culture continue and pass on, no matter where it is, as long as it is created by our ancestors, as long as he has contributed to the development and civilization of mankind, I think the value of this cultural relic can be reflected, if you have the ability and the strength to let such a cultural relic return as soon as possible, in fact, it is also a matter of immeasurable merit.