On August 19, 2013, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage issued the "Catalogue of the Third Batch of Cultural Relics Prohibited from Export exhibition", and 94 pieces (groups) of precious cultural relics were selected, of which the Yue Wang Gou Jian Sword was particularly eye-catching. Unlike other exhibitions that prohibit cultural relics from going abroad, Yue Wang's Gou Jianjian has three overseas exhibitions, the National Museum of Tokyo in June 1973, the "Warring States Chu Cultural Relics Exhibition" held in Hong Kong in 1984, and singapore in 1993.
In the third exhibition, the millennium sword was damaged, and it was artificial. What's going on? It all started in the winter of 1965. At the archaeological excavation site of the Wangshan Chu Tomb Group in Jiangling County, Jingzhou City, Hubei Province, archaeologists accidentally found a sword in Tomb No. 1.
At that time, the sword was inserted in the black lacquer sheath, and after the archaeologists pulled it out, the sword body did not have any rust, and the cold light was compelling. The sword is not large in size, with a length of 55.6 cm, a width of 4.6 cm, a handle length of 8.4 cm and a weight of 875 grams. The main features of the sword are as follows, the body of the sword is covered with a slightly black diamond-shaped ornament, the front of the sword grid is made of blue glass, the back of the sword grid is inlaid with turquoise to form a beautiful pattern, and in the part near the handle, there are two lines of eight bird seal characters inlaid with gold wire.
At first, everyone did not know what these eight bird seal characters meant, but under the research of famous archaeologists such as Guo Moruo and Xia Nai, they finally thought that this was the sword of the Yue King. The Yue King's sword shocked the world as soon as it was unearthed, especially after more than two thousand years, it was still sharp, which aroused people's interest.
According to the determination of the composition and surface decoration of the Gou Jian sword according to the proton ray fluorescence analysis, it is known that the sword body is mainly cast in tin bronze, containing a small amount of aluminum and trace nickel, while the gray-black diamond pattern and the black hilt and sword grid contain sulfur. At that time, the world's major museums hoped that yue wang Gou Jianjian would be exhibited in their own museums, so they applied to the Chinese side.
In 1993, the Yue King's sword was transported to Singapore to participate in the "Warring States Chu Cultural Relics Exhibition", as one of the activities of Sino-Singapore cultural exchanges, this sword became the highlight of the event, which aroused great interest from the Singaporean people. However, when the event ended withdrew, "An accident happened!" "The Singaporean staff stuck a plexiglass handle plate on the blade of the sword, and when the sword was removed, we found a new mark on the blade, 0.7 cm long and 0.1 cm wide.
After the news reached China, public opinion was in an uproar. When the Yue King's sword was transported back to China, experts inspected and believed that the damage to the sword body by the new marks was minimal and negligible. At that time, a newspaper in Hubei directly published an article, "Not a "national treasure" wants to go abroad, but a "living treasure" wants to go abroad", which sharply criticized the accident.
After this accident, it directly affected the exhibition of cultural relics going abroad (border), and the State Administration of Cultural Relics even issued the "Regulations on the Administration of Cultural Relics Going Abroad (Border) Exhibition", the purpose of which is to protect precious cultural relics, which is of great significance. According to reports, at present, the mainland's "Regulations on the Administration of The Exhibition of Cultural Relics Abroad (Border)" has come to the third batch.