Extreme News Reporter Xia Yu
Correspondents: Zhang Zhixiang, Hou Yejing, Zhang Qiong
On September 5, the popular online short drama "Escape from the British Museum" ushered in the end, in the film, "It's just that this wooden body can withstand the apologies of the thief, but it can't carry the eyes of the deceased", "The next stop, Gem Road (Homecoming)", "May the mountains and rivers be unharmed, and the home country will be forever safe" and other frequently poked tearful lines still echo in the ears. The topic of "asking the British Museum to return Chinese cultural relics free of charge" has rushed to the hot search.
Founded in 1753, the British Museum has a staggering collection of more than 8 million pieces – covering treasures from many countries around the world. This world-famous museum is also a museum of "losing things five times". Recently, it was revealed that about 2,000 treasures in the British Museum have disappeared, and some of them have even been sold online at low prices.
Do you know? There was also a group of Hubei cultural relics with great research value that were "lost overseas" and recovered.
Screenshot of the short play "Escape from the British Museum"
The Chinese tangle thin tire jade pot is not a cultural relic
"The day we first met, why did you call me family?"
"They say that with black eyes and yellow skin, the people who can understand me are my family, and my family is a blood compatriot."
The protagonist of "Escape from the British Museum" is an anthropomorphic Chinese tangle jade pot, which begins with her escape from the British Museum and encounters a young journalist, and then depicts a long journey back to China. This road has made many audiences love and cry, especially the small jade pot looking at the "compatriots" cultural relics in the display case, the plot of reading the family book is impressive.
A large number of cultural relics shots appeared in the short film, and many netizens also discussed "Is the small jade pot a cultural relic".
"As far as the current information is concerned, the Chinese tangle thin tire jade pot is not a cultural relic, but a modern art purchased and collected by the British Museum through formal channels in 2017." Gao Gao, a member of the Youth Theory Propaganda Volunteer Alliance of the Hubei Academy of Social Sciences, told Extreme News that this teapot is made of a whole 13-kilogram piece of Qinghai green jade, which took half a year to carve. It uses a thin tire process and is the work of Yu Ting, a master jade carver. "Unlike what the audience imagined, the jade pot is only 9 centimeters in diameter, 14.3 centimeters long and 8 centimeters high. However, the small and delicate body did not affect the smoothness of the surface tangled patterns. The ornaments of the all-over treasure flowers and entwined lotus are full of auspicious and tranquil atmosphere. ”
According to public information, there are more than 23,000 Chinese cultural relics in the British Museum, including stone tools, painted pottery, bronze ware, lacquerware, jade and other categories. According to Chi Xinyi, a doctoral student at the School of History of Wuhan University, who has just returned from a study tour in the UK, the national treasure-level "Female History Monitor" is also hidden in it and has become one of the treasures of the British Museum. The scroll long painting "Nu Shi Zhentu" drawn by Gu Kaizhi of the Eastern Jin Dynasty based on the Jin dynasty politician Zhang Hua's "Nu Shi Zhen" is one of the earliest known long scrolls of Chinese painting. The existing Tang facsimile, Song copy and new copy, among which the Tang copy in the British Museum, is the earliest existing Chinese silk painting in the world today, and is recognized as a rare artistic treasure by the world art community. In addition, the British collection has a number of Dunhuang artifacts. Among them, the Dunhuang documents are displayed in the manuscript collection area of the British Library, which is in the Asian and Oriental Section.
Screenshot of the short play "Escape from the British Museum"
Chinese artifacts in the British Library (Photo by Chi Xinyi)
"Lost and recovered" Hubei cultural relics
The overseas fall of cultural logistics also affects people's hearts.
According to the official introduction of the Hubei Provincial Cultural Relics Development Center, the bronze artifacts of Zeng Boke's father in the current collection and the Hubei Provincial Museum are "lost and recovered" cultural relics.
Zeng Boke's bronze group is composed of eight pieces, including ding, 甗 (yǎn), 簋 (guǐ), 盨 (xǔ), pot and 霝 (líng), which are complete and beautifully made. The eight artifacts all have inscriptions, a total of 330 characters, which have important academic value, and experts have identified them as national first-class cultural relics as a whole.
The inscription indicates that this group of bronze artifacts should be made by the same person, "Zeng Boke Father Ganlou", "Zeng" is the name of the country, the ranking is "Bo", the character "Kefather", and "Ganlou" is its name. Some experts said that at present, Zeng Guo archaeology knows that "Zeng Bo" is the eldest son of Zeng Marquis, which shows his noble status. After comprehensive research on the shape, ornamentation and inscriptions of these bronzes, combined with the analysis of rust products and the observation of the characteristics of the rust layer, experts believe that these bronzes should be excavated in recent years from the tombs of high-ranking nobles of Zeng Guo in the early Spring and Autumn period of Suizhou, Hubei Province.
Zeng Boke's father bronze (photo by Xiao Hao, polar news reporter)
The polar news reporter learned that in September 2020, these 8 bronzes recovered in 2019 "Zeng Boke's father" appeared for the first time in the Hubei Provincial Museum's "Huazhang Reappearance - Zeng Shijia Cultural Relics Special Exhibition", and "reunited" with the exquisite cultural relics of Zeng Guo unearthed in Hubei in the past 10 years, which made the audience and tourists very excited. Today, this group of bronzes "returning to hometown" is also on display in the exhibition hall of the new hall of Hubei Provincial Museum "Zeng Shijia - Zeng Guo Revealed by Archaeology", attracting the attention of countless audiences.
In addition to the bronze of Zeng Boke's father, the cultural relics unearthed in Hubei East Zhou Tongdun have also experienced the process of being lost overseas and returning to the motherland, and their legendary stories have also been filmed into two film and television dramas: "National Treasure Auction Soon" and "National Treasure Resurrected Trilobite". According to the official introduction of the Hubei Provincial Cultural Relics Development Center, Tongdun in Eastern Zhou was originally unearthed in a place called Banjiuwo in Zigui, Hubei. At that time, some villagers dug up a hemispherical copper artifact and handed it in, and the cultural relics cadres thought that there should be half of the bronze artifact. Together, they are the complete Eastern Zhou Tongdun, 22.8 cm high, 17.5 cm in diameter, with three symmetrical S-shaped animal buttons above and below, and a pair of symmetrical ring ears above and below the lid. Its whole body pattern is delicate and smooth, delicate and complicated, and it is a utensil used to hold rice and other grains in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, and has high artistic and historical value. After this treasure was lost overseas, it was almost auctioned. After many efforts, it was finally recovered. At present, Dongzhou Tongdun is on permanent display in the Hubei Provincial Museum.
Zeng Boke's father pot (photo by extreme news reporter Xiao Hao)