China has a civilization history of more than 5,000 years, so many historical relics have been handed down. Most of the cultural relics have been buried in the ground with the changes of history, until in recent years by many archaeologists, they have been found, to be seen again; but there are also items that have been passed down from generation to generation by the family, and finally given the attributes of cultural relics by history, becoming precious heirlooms.
In recent years, there has been a dispute over whether heirlooms defined as cultural relics should be kept by the State or by individuals.
In Hebei, when a woman took two heirlooms to identify their authenticity, the two heirlooms were defined by the cultural relics management department as excavated cultural relics and then confiscated.
In order to recover the two heirlooms, it took the women 29 years, and finally the court's final judgment department returned the two heirlooms.
Ancient tombs were found in the fields, and rural women handed in cultural relics to be commended
In November 1983, Hebei was already a little cold in the late autumn, and Liu Cuichao's family in Beizhangli Village, Jinzhou City, still had some farm work to do.
On this day, Liu Cuichao's family was working in the field, and when they used a shovel to loosen the soil, they found that there was an abnormality under the soil in an area.
The Liu family cleaned up the mud in the area and found that there was a tomb underneath. The scattered bricks make the tomb look very old, and some near-decaying coffins prove that the tomb is some years old.
Who built this tomb in their own fields?
Curious, the Liu family briefly cleaned the tomb, and then they found several items in the soil, such as copper bottles and jade medicine mills.
Although these items look very old, the Liu family also knows that these things unearthed from the tomb must have important value.
The Liu family simply cleaned up the items and took them home. The villagers of Beizhangli Village saw that the Liu family had brought so many things home, so they asked, "Where did you get these old objects?" ”
"Dug up in my own field." Liu Cuichao replied.
"What is under the ground, it should not be a cultural relic, but it must be handed over to the state." The villagers said.
It turned out that due to the rampant trafficking of cultural relics in the 1980s, the country lost a large number of precious cultural relics. In order to better protect cultural relics, at the Standing Committee of the Fifth National People's Congress on November 19, 1982, the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Cultural Relics was adopted.
The Law on the Protection of Cultural Relics stipulates that all cultural relics left over the ground, inland waters and territorial waters within the territory of the People's Republic of China belong to the State.
Liu Cuichao thought to himself: These should not really be cultural relics, I have to hurry to confirm it. So Liu Cuichao went to the village chief and reported the discovery of the ancient tomb.
The village chief of Beizhangli Village also gave feedback to the higher government at the first time.
The government soon sent archaeologists to the village of Beizhangli, and under the leadership of Liu Cuichao, archaeologists came to the field where the tomb was found to explore.
After research and comparison, archaeologists judged that the tomb discovered by Liu Cuichao's family was a tomb from the middle of the Tang Dynasty. The items that Liu Cuichao brought back were all precious cultural relics.
After learning this news, Liu Cuichao's family immediately handed over these cultural relics to the local cultural relics management department.
In order to commend Liu Cuichao's family for taking the initiative to report and hand over cultural relics, the local government issued a cash reward of 600 yuan to their families.
This can make other villagers in Beizhangli Village envious, and they have gone home to find out whether they have any old objects, maybe they are also cultural relics, and they may also be able to get such rewards after handing them in.
You know, in 1983, the price of cabbage was one cent and three cents a pound, 10 yuan, you can buy 700 pounds of cabbage; a peasant family, working in the field a year can not earn 600 yuan. Therefore, the people in North Zhangli Village are very envious of Liu Cuichao's family for such luck.
I thought that with the handing in of cultural relics, the matter would be over. Unexpectedly, an incident that happened later made Liu Cuichao toss for 29 years.
Heirloom identification was confiscated
On November 11, 1983, Liu Cuichao appeared in front of the Hebei Provincial Museum in Shijiazhuang.
According to the museum's staff, when he saw Liu Cuichao that day, Liu Cuichao looked very tired and carried a tightly covered package.
The staff took Liu Cuichao to the reception room and asked her the purpose of her visit to the museum, and Liu Cuichao said that she had come to identify cultural relics.
"Identification of artifacts? You wait here, I'll see if the identification experts in the field of cultural relics are there. The staff let Liu Cuichao rest in the reception room.
Then Gao Yingmin, the museum's archaeologist, pushed open the door of the reception room.
After Gao Yingmin briefly introduced himself to Liu Cuichao, he asked Liu Cuichao what cultural relics he wanted to identify.
Liu Cuichao carefully opened the package next to him and said to Gao Yingmin: "Can you help me identify whether these two ancestral things of mine are true." ”
As the package was slowly opened, Gao Yingmin saw two objects with a sense of age, one was a black clay bowl and the other was a stone medicine mill.
Gao Yingmin picked up black clay bowls and stone medicine mills and carefully weighed them, and pondered which dynasty's craftsmanship they were similar to.
He found some dirt on the stone medicine mill.
After reading the two items, Gao Yingmin had a general conclusion in mind, but for the sake of rigor, he said to Liu Cuichao: "The identification of cultural relics needs to be compared in detail, and the results cannot be produced within one or two days, so let me write you a note first, and I will notify you when the results come out." ”
Gao Yingmin picked up a pen and paper and wrote: Received the white stone medicine tools and black bowls sent by the Northern Zhangli Brigade in Jin County and Liu Cuichao. And handed the note to Liu Cuichao.
Liu Cuichao didn't think much about it, took the note, thanked Gao Yingmin, and then embarked on the way home.
Gao Yingmin,on the side, combined with the data to compare the two items in more detail, found that these two items are genuine.
It is basically certain that the stone medicine mill is an object of the Tang Dynasty period, and its surface ornamentation style is very similar to some of the established Tang Dynasty cultural relics.
The black pottery bowl is even older, because in the Tang Dynasty there were almost no stone kilns that produced black pottery, and the black pottery bowl held by Liu Cuichao can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.
Gao Yingmin reported the situation of the two items and his own inference, and the higher authorities gave the appraisal results after verification: the two items were first-class A and belonged to the national cultural relics.
After getting the appraisal results, Gao Yingmin wondered: How can an ordinary peasant woman's family have such precious cultural relics?
At this time, a piece of news caught Gao Yingmin's attention: a few days ago, an ancient tomb from the middle of the Tang Dynasty was found in Jinzhou City, and a large number of precious cultural relics were unearthed, and the government commended the family of Liu Cuichao, the discoverer of the tomb.
Gao Yingmin found that Liu Cuichao on the news and Liu Cuichao, who came to him to identify cultural relics, were both from North Zhangli Village in Jinzhou City, obviously the same person!
The front foot just found the ancient tomb, the back foot came to find their own identification of cultural relics, and a cultural relics also with mud, it is inevitable that people do not doubt the source of cultural relics.
Gao Yingmin pondered: These two cultural relics are likely to be hidden in her own home by Liu Cuichao after the discovery of the ancient tomb, rather than the ancestors in her mouth!
After reaching this conclusion, Gao Yingmin already had his own judgment on how to deal with these two cultural relics.
On Liu Cuichao's side, after waiting at home for a few days, he estimated that the authenticity of the two heirlooms should have been identified, so he took the receipt to find Gao Yingmin.
When Gao Yingmin saw Liu Cuichao looking for her, he said to her: "The identification results of two items have come out, one is from the Tang Dynasty, and the other is most likely from the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, both of which are genuine." ”
Knowing that both were genuine, Liu Was happy and offered to retrieve the two heirlooms.
At this time, Gao Yingmin said: "These two items are not here with me now, and have been transferred to the corresponding cultural relics management department." ”
Hearing Gao Yingmin say this, Liu Cuichao was stunned for a while.
At first, she thought that this was Gao Yingmin's unwillingness to return her heirlooms, and she casually found a reason to prevaricate herself.
However, after seeing Gao Yingmin take out the acceptance documents of the cultural relics management department, Liu Cuichao suddenly understood that his family's heirloom was probably really handed over by Gao Yingmin.
Liu Cuichao was angry and angry, and she pointed at Gao Yingmin and said, "Why did you hand over my family's heirloom without my consent?" ”
Gao Yingmin retorted: "This is not an heirloom at all, but a cultural relic that you have hidden privately, which belongs to the state." ”
"This is my family's heirloom, my grandfather passed it on to me."
The two argued for a long time, and finally Gao Yingmin made it clear that the two cultural relics were no longer in his hands and had been handed over to the corresponding cultural relics management department.
At this time, Liu Cuichao also understood that from Gao Yingmin, he was afraid that he would not be able to return those two heirlooms.
So she went to the cultural relics department to receive the heirloom to inquire, but the cultural relics department only knew that it was the cultural relics handed in by Gao Yingmin, where she knew Liu Cuichao, Liu Cuichao could not come up with evidence to prove that the two cultural relics were her own, and naturally she was turned away.
Since then, Liu Cuichao has contacted Gao Yingmin and the cultural relics management department several times to try to retrieve his family heirloom, but he has been refused, and finally Liu Cuichao seems to have given up.
But the matter did not really end, and this rural woman had an unimaginable attachment to these two heirlooms.
Archaeologists have been sued, and the ownership of cultural relics is still controversial
In October 2003, Gao Yingmin suddenly received a summons from the court, and someone sued him! Gao Yingmin pondered that he had been working hard all these years, had not done anything bad, and should not have offended anyone.
But when he saw Liu Cuichao's name on the summons, he immediately remembered what happened 20 years ago.
In addition to Gao Yingmin, the Jinju Municipal Bureau of Culture and Sports was also subpoenaed by the court.
It turned out that liu Cuichao's two heirlooms that were identified by Gao Yingmin were handed over by Gao Yingmin and finally kept by the Jinzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture and Sports. The Jinzhou Municipal Government also introduced the stone medicine mill in the "Jinxian Chronicle".
For 20 years, Liu Cuichao has always been unwilling, and the heirlooms handed down from generation to generation in his family have disappeared, and the more he thinks about it, the more angry he is.
After 20 years of silence, Liu Cuichao filed a complaint against Gao Yingmin and the Jinju Municipal Bureau of Culture and Sports.
Liu Cuichao sued Gao Yingmin on the grounds that 20 years ago she took two heirlooms to Gao Yingmin for identification, but Gao Yingmin handed over the two heirlooms without her consent.
Among the physical evidence provided by Liu Cuichao, there was the receipt that Gao Yingmin wrote to her 20 years ago.
The reason for suing the Jinju Municipal Bureau of Culture and Sports was that the Jinzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture and Sports rejected her claim to take away the cultural relics on the grounds that two cultural relics were not handed over by Liu Cuichao.
Liu Cuichao made two main demands, one is to ask the Jinzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture and Sports to return his heirloom, and the other is to ask Gao Yingmin to compensate himself for economic losses of 3,000 yuan.
Because this is a case of "civil suing the official", and the object of dispute between the two sides is two national cultural relics.
Out of prudence, the Jinzhou Municipal People's Court reported the case to the Shijiazhuang Intermediate People's Court.
The Shijiazhuang Intermediate People's Court held a special meeting on the case and finally transferred the case to the Xinji People's Court for trial.
On July 21, 2004, the Xinji People's Court held its first trial of the case.
At the scene of the courtroom, the two hairs argued on the basis of reason and each had its own opinions.
Liu Cuichao said that the two heirlooms were passed down to him by his grandfather, who was a doctor when he was alive, and passed on the medical books to himself together with items such as black pottery bowls and stone medicine mills.
Liu Cuichao took out the medical book left by his grandfather as evidence.
Liu Cuichao accused Gao Yingmin of handing over two items without his permission.
She was a little excited and said to Gao Yingmin, "You are a robber who stole my heirloom." ”
Gao Yingmin in the defendant's seat was unusually calm, he looked very determined, and explained in a gentle tone: "These two items are definitely not ancestral to Liu Cuichao's family, on the day of the appraisal, I found that there was dirt on the stone medicine mill, and after identification I found that the dirt was exactly the same as the dirt of the ancient tomb in Beizhangli Village, so I think these two cultural relics are liu Cuichao's private collection, from the ancient tomb." ”
"And these two cultural relics have existed for more than a thousand years, and there are no big people in Liu Cuichao's family ancestors, how can there be objects that have been passed down for so long."
Liu did not agree with Gao Yingmin's words, insisting that the two cultural relics were her heirlooms. At first, she saw that the things unearthed from the ancient tomb were very similar to these two cultural relics, and then she thought of identifying them. The artifacts unearthed from the tomb were first kept in her home, and a lot of mud fell when cleaning up the cultural relics at home, and the dirt on the stone medicine mill may have been accidentally glued when she was cleaning.
Liu Cuichao also said that there are many old objects handed down from his ancestors, including ancient vases, tin pots, lion copper plates, and deeds of ancestral craftsmanship.
Both sides said that it was reasonable and well-founded, and for a time the stalemate could not be reached, and the judge did not give a verdict on the same day and announced a future date for retrial.
Restitution, 29 years of persistence
In February 2005, after two trials, the Xinji People's Court ruled that the dispute over the ownership of cultural relics was actually a dispute between the administrative authority and the person being managed, and that it should be an administrative lawsuit, not a civil case.
Therefore, the court dismissed the plaintiff Liu Cuichao's lawsuit.
In other words, the cultural relics are still kept by the Jinju Municipal Bureau of Culture and Sports.
Liu Cuichao obviously could not accept this result, so on June 28, 2005, she appealed again to the Jinju Municipal People's Court.
The person in charge of hearing the case this time is the Zhengding County People's Court. Liu Cuichao's appeal this time is to revoke the administrative act of nationalizing two cultural relics.
Liu Cuichao said that there were a total of 6 cultural relics excavated from the ancient tombs of the Tang Dynasty, and she had all handed them over. The Jinzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture and Sports insisted that there were a total of 8 excavated cultural relics, but when the staff checked the registration records of the Bureau of Culture and Sports that year, they found that only 7 excavated cultural relics were registered! Whether the Bureau of Culture and Sports included the eighth cultural relic, no one can explain clearly.
The Law on the Protection of Cultural Relics stipulates that cultural relics collected by citizens in accordance with the law and enjoy ownership may request the competent department of cultural relics to provide appraisals. After the appraisal, if the cultural relics that truly belong to the individual citizens legally held, they should be returned in a timely manner.
At the same time, if it is determined that the cultural relics are excavated from the tomb, the cultural relics management department may confiscate them according to law, but the competent administrative organ for cultural relics shall perform the corresponding administrative procedures and make a written administrative decision.
Obviously, the Jinzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture and Sports did not submit any procedures, and the act of possessing Liu Cuichao's two items did not comply with the provisions of the process, and the registration records provided by it could not prove that the two cultural relics were excavated from ancient tombs.
In the end, the Zhengding County People's Court made a judgment to revoke the administrative acts of the two items that were identified as excavated cultural relics and belonged to the state.
However, both the plaintiff and the defendant disputed this judgment, and Liu Cuichao believed that the court only determined that the two cultural relics were not excavated cultural relics, but did not prove that the two cultural relics were their own heirlooms.
Gao Yingmin and other defendants were dissatisfied with the cultural relics that had been in custody for twenty years, but in the end they were found not to belong to the state, a result they could not accept.
Both sides have successively raised the need for retrial.
The Shijiazhuang Intermediate People's Court, in accordance with the strong wishes of both sides, withdrew the administrative judgment of the Zhengding County People's Court and announced that the case would be retried.
On June 18, 2008, the national treasure dispute case was heard again, and the final result of the trial was that the defendant's department's act of collecting black pottery bowls and stone medicine mills was illegal, and the defendant was sentenced to return two cultural relics within 60 days.
Liu Cuichao was very satisfied with this result, but Gao Yingmin and relevant departments obviously did not agree.
On the one hand, they are not assured that Liu Cuichao will carefully keep these two precious cultural relics, on the other hand, they are worried that Liu Cuichao's success will make more "Liu Cuichao" ask them for cultural relics.
Gao Yingmin and others appealed again, but in the final trial in 2012, the Shijiazhuang Intermediate People's Court upheld the original judgment.
The 29-year-long issue of ownership of cultural relics has come to an end for the time being.
In the whole incident, although Liu Cuichao did not have sufficient evidence to prove that the two cultural relics were heirlooms, it was an established fact that the cultural relics management department confiscated the two cultural relics in violation of the law, so the court's ruling that the cultural relics management department returned liu Cuichao's two cultural relics was reasonable.
After 29 years, Liu Cuichao retrieved two of his own heirlooms.
However, the cultural relics management department of Hebei Province has not given up on this. It is reported that the Hebei Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau has submitted a report to the State Administration of Cultural Heritage for coordination.
Perhaps before long, there will be disputes over the ownership of these two cultural relics.
Cultural relics are non-renewable resources, and in the end, no matter who keeps the two cultural relics, we hope that they will not have a utilitarian mentality, and can keep these two cultural relics well and let history pass on.