In the past two decades, an unprecedented collection fever has swept through all of China, with 240 million ghost valleys descending the mountain jar, 550 million Qianlong Yangcai openwork bottles, etc., like a bombshell, causing a series of chain reactions. Antique cities have risen from the ground, people have tea and dinner, collection has become the most popular talk, the major entrepreneurs and rich people, proud to be able to shoot a precious cultural relics, movies and TELEVISION series have begun to add a variety of treasure hunting, treasure theft and treasure hunting content.
However, the addition of tens of millions of Tibetan friends has also brought about the proliferation of counterfeits, which have completely failed to keep up with some experts of the times, and used old theories to identify new counterfeiting technologies, resulting in various farces and scandals. In the era when scientific appraisal is not perfect, these traditional experts are powerless in the face of a large number of fakes, some experts simply have no bottom line, in order to issue money without any legal authority of the appraisal certificate, resulting in false certificates flying all over the sky, and some experts in order to continue to grasp the right to speak, directly determine that folk cultural relics are all fakes, resulting in many people at a loss, can not find a way out. Even self-doubt, is there really no precious cultural relics in the folk?
In this situation, many "illegitimate children of cultural relics" born for various complex reasons are drowned and covered by ocean-like forgeries, and precious cultural relics are not recognized and no one dares to collect, thus causing the phenomenon of cultural relics outflow and destruction. At this critical moment, fortunately, a group of responsible and discerning people have appeared among folk collectors, who have taken their own practical actions and used their own hard-earned money to voluntarily protect the national treasures submerged in fake garbage, and carefully cared for these "illegitimate children of cultural relics" for the country.
Unfortunately, this righteous act has been criticized and even slandered by society one after another. Whether there are precious cultural relics in the folk and how to define and evaluate collections for various motivations have been a focus of debate in the field of collection. In view of this, the author tries to objectively talk about his own views from the following three aspects, in order to prove that there are indeed facts and bases for the existence of cultural relics and national treasures, and also hopes to arouse the society's correct understanding and minimum respect for collectors and founders of folk museums who collect such cultural relics and national treasures.
First, in the past 20 years, the real reason behind the abnormal amount of cultural relics rarely unearthed by the country's regular archaeology
As everyone knows, from the 1950s to the 1980s, the mainland adopted a highly centralized planned economic system, coupled with the central government's policy of strictly prohibiting the construction of buildings, halls, museums, institutes, and economic foundations, resulting in almost no major capital construction actions before 1992, and the amount of earth moved was extremely small, but in the case of this extremely small amount of soil, many precious cultural relics were unearthed. Similarly, in the two decades since the 1990s, China has made great economic development, opened up its policies, and built its infrastructure to an unprecedented 5,000-year history. Looking at the national construction, the amount of earthwork in the past twenty years is many times more than the sum of the five thousand years of earthwork in history, but in such a large-scale earthwork, it is far less abundant and large than the cultural relics unearthed in the previous forty years, which is unreasonable and questionable. Below, we will only take yuan qinghua as an example, in-depth analysis, to see its results.
A total of 205 pieces of yuan qinghua have been unearthed in the mainland collection, all of which were excavated in 16 provinces and cities across the country from 1950 to 2006, including 30 in Anhui, 20 in Beijing, 13 in Hebei, 20 in Jiangsu, 61 in Jiangxi, 5 in Hubei, 3 in Hunan, 1 in Henan, 5 in Shandong, 4 in Sichuan, 31 in Inner Mongolia, 4 in Gansu, 1 in Guangxi, 2 in Xinjiang, 4 in Zhejiang, and 1 in Jilin. If we analyze it carefully, it is not difficult to find a very abnormal strange phenomenon, of which 193 of the 205 were excavated from 1950 to 1992, not a single one was unearthed from 1993 to 1996, and only 12 were excavated from 1996 to the present. Is this strange phenomenon normal? According to common sense, more yuanqinghua should be found than 193 pieces. So what's behind the abnormality?
In recent years, major media across the country have often disclosed that a certain builder found that cultural relics sites were not reported and forcibly destroyed for construction. Recently, the People's Daily reported that 13 Song and Yuan granaries in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province, were greatly damaged during the non-stop construction of excavators, and will be replaced by a large commercial and residential real estate - "Ruyi Jiangnan". Although the local government has called off the investigation, it is regrettable that it will never be able to restore the historical appearance of the Song and Yuan granaries (which were shortlisted for the 2009 National Top Ten Archaeological Discoveries Primary). Such a builder's destruction of heritage sites is just one of countless cases.
Another example is that in 2007, the state built a road in Gufengzhuang, Yanchi, Ningxia, excavators dug out three gold medals weighing 3600 grams (later verified to be the relics of Xiang Haiming, the leader of the peasant uprising at the end of the Sui Dynasty), which were picked up by four farmers who spread the soil, and then sold in the Yinchuan antique market for more than half a month, no one believed and dared to recognize, and many people thought that it was chemical gold powder coated with lead, and drove its migrant workers out of the store, fortunately, the salt pond cultural relics and public security departments heard the news in time and recovered it, and it is now treasured in the Ningxia Museum.
In another example, a farmer in Liaoning picked up a gold medal in the Inner Mongolian grassland, and according to the CCTV special report, it was also a twist and turn, which was quite dramatic. In the past few years, the farmer has successively gone to the CCTV "Jian Bao" column, the National Museum, the Forbidden City, the Liaoning Museum and other authoritative units to seek reference, all of which are said to be fakes, and the farmer has no choice but to find a goldsmith to sell, just at the moment when the goldsmith turned this gold medal into gold water, fortunately a certain collector saved it and survived to be destroyed. Later, he was recognized by an old professor of Inner Mongolia University, with tears in his eyes and trembling hands, as the gold medal of the ancestor Kublai Khan, which was acquired for 50,000 yuan and is now treasured in the Museum of Inner Mongolia University. The above examples are not only the cases of countless cases in the country, but also the known cases of the discovery of excavated cultural relics by countless ordinary people. At present, I don't know how many unknown and precious cultural relics hidden in the folk, why is this so?
Everyone knows that before 1980, people's ideological concepts were still stuck at the time of the Cultural Revolution. At that time, the whole country was: people regarded antiques as garbage, once cultural relics were found, they were regarded as garbage and things that were sealed and repaired, and they were all destroyed, and most of the people regarded the excavated cultural relics (except gold and silver) as ominous things, so there were cases of the state discovering and collecting many cultural relics from the hands of the people at that time, of course, there were also many cases of people taking the initiative to report the cultural relics. Look at who in the country today does not know the precious value of cultural relics, and even the collection fever has made many people even fakes and garbage as national treasures, so although the amount of earthwork is large, there are few people who find cultural relics and take the initiative to submit reports. Isn't this phenomenon worth pondering?
From this alone, we can see how many cultural relics with such a fate are in a bad situation, and even how many precious cultural relics that even the holders do not know what and what value are in danger of being destroyed and destroyed at any time and anywhere. How to discover and rescue these cultural relics in a timely manner has become a major event that the current national cultural relics workers cannot delay.
Second, the shocking wave of tomb robbery has caused losses to the protection of cultural relics
The boom in collection has not only exacerbated the trend of tomb robbery, but also caused major losses to the country's cultural heritage, resulting in the loss of countless precious cultural relics and national treasures to the people, exiled overseas, and even facing damage at any time. On this issue, Shan Jixiang, director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, said when he was a guest on Phoenix Satellite TV: At present, the trend of tomb robbery on the mainland is rampant, and the activities of tomb robbers have shown a trend of organizing collectivization and equipping modern science and technology, and their level is no less than or even surpasses that of professional archaeologists, and the wind of excavation has spread throughout the country.
"Ten tombs and nine empty spaces" has become a desolate and helpless sigh of archaeology and cultural relics workers across the country. Whenever the state allocates special funds to solemnly open ancient tombs, they are faced with "monuments" and criminal traces left by tomb robbers, and archaeologists at this time are both disappointed and angry, and at the same time feel helpless. The excavation of Cao Cao's tomb, which took seven years with limited archaeological funds, turned out to be an empty tomb that had long been patronized and plundered by stolen tomb thieves. If the excavation of the original tomb is in no way, it will not lead to unwarranted suspicion and criticism, but it is only if. After the Tomb of the Imperial Gong Tomb of the Tang Dynasty in Luoyang was stolen and patronized by thieves, countless precious cultural relics were transferred and sold to Hong Kong several times, fortunately, the public security department cracked the case in time, the perpetrator was executed, and the cultural relics are now treasured in the Luoyang Museum.
In the Tang Dynasty, Li Longji Wu Huifei weighed more than tons of sarcophagus
What is even more shocking is that CCTV reported that the sarcophagus weighing more than a ton of Li Longji Wu Huifei in the Tang Dynasty actually appeared on the territory of the United States, and such a huge cultural relic, such a large mausoleum of such specifications, was stolen, and it was not discovered, but how was it transported to the United States? It's unbelievable and generates infinite suspicion. Fortunately, the state came forward to recover it, so that the coffin was returned to its hometown. In addition, according to the royal Tang tombs that have been excavated by the country in the past, the general gold objects are about a thousand pieces, so the tomb of Emperor Wu Huifei does not know how many other precious cultural relics are still scattered in the folk or abroad. In 2010, the public security department cracked the confiscated case of the excavation of the Qin Emperor's Tomb, which is only one of many tomb robbery cases. Let's take another look at the yuanqinghua jar now treasured by the Bengbu Museum in Anhui Province, which belongs to the national treasure level cultural relics, and it is actually a fragment discarded by the stolen tomb thieves from the tomb of tang and the tomb of the stolen founding hero of the Ming Dynasty, and where are the remaining complete yuanqinghua artifacts and other precious cultural relics placed by the tomb robbers at that time? For example, on April 8, CCTV news reported that Fourteen Han Dynasty Tombs of Zhang Anshi were found in Xi'an, thirteen of which were stolen empty tombs.
The above few examples are only a dime in the wave of tomb robberies, and how much do you know about the shocking cases of tomb robbery reported by the media? More importantly, how many unknown cases of large and small tomb robberies are there? Therefore, how much do we know about cultural relics that have been destroyed at any time in a bad state or scattered overseas? But what is even more frightening is that there are still a considerable number of cultural relics experts who dare not recognize or dare not believe because of their precious value? Most of the ancient tombs excavated by the state archaeology today are passive rescue excavations after the discovery of the tomb robbery, resulting in a large number of cultural relics leaving the place and flowing into the people. Now that it has become an irreversible fait accompli, we should face the reality and consider how to carry out rescue.
However, it is very sad that some of our well-motivated and very ignorant experts are unwilling to admit it when confronted with folk excavations, and they can do it with a "fake" word. Afterwards, their theory was based on the fact that if it was true, it would further encourage the trend of tomb robbery. How pathetic and pathetic! Such a concept is actually the degeneration and ignorance of individual cultural relics workers, and it also reflects the lag in the provisions of our national cultural relics policy.
As a government cultural relics department and cultural relics worker, the responsibility, right and obligation are to excavate and study cultural relics for protection. It is not only necessary to study and protect the cultural relics excavated from archaeology and the collection, but also to use a keen eye to discover the cultural relics lost in the folk. If the state has the conditions to collect, if it is unconditionally collected, it is necessary to publicize and educate the holders of folk cultural relics to protect the cultural relics, and register them in the register, so that the state can choose the opportunity to purchase them at the right time. This should be the obligation of every level and every cultural relics worker. Subjectively, in order to prevent the spread of tomb robbery, we should not deliberately identify real cultural relics as fakes, resulting in ignorant holders either destroying cultural relics or annihilating them in the folk or flowing out of the country cheaply.
At present, in the face of rampant tomb robbery, the state should actively establish a system of policies and regulations on the protection of cultural relics, increase the intensity of severe crackdowns, and always be optimistic about the "three doors" (tomb gate, museum gate, national gate). In view of the "three doors", it is necessary to formulate practical and feasible countermeasures and measures, especially in the three links of education, prevention and crackdown, in order to be effective. Nowadays, many cultural relics experts are really eager for paid appraisal of cultural relics and various activities, repeatedly taking advantage of the opportunity of collection fever, going around burrowing, amassing money, and irresponsibly issuing appraisal certificates, which is really insulting to the mission of cultural relics workers and damaging the reputation of the country. It is understood that foreign countries, especially the British Museum, for the cultural relics sought by the people, all implement free appraisal, and the reason for their views is: First, cultural relics workers should take the taxpayer's salary and should appraise cultural relics for the society free of charge. Second, the duties, rights and obligations of cultural relics work are to study and protect cultural relics, and the identification and discovery of folk cultural relics is the concrete embodiment of obligations, rights and responsibilities. If the cultural relics workers in our country can change their concepts and put them into action in a timely manner, it will be a blessing for the mainland's cultural relics undertakings and the collection industry.
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