The exhibition hall "Starting from Guangzhou" has an exhibition area of 720 square meters.
The specimen of the "wine pier" unearthed from the site of the National Palace Administration of Nanyue.
Printed clay pot ("Cantonese pot") on the "Nanhai I".
May 18 is the 48th International Museum Day, and on the morning of the same day, the final evaluation results of the 21st (2023) National Museum Top Ten Exhibitions were announced.
The theme of this year's International Museum Day is "Museums Committed to Education and Research". As a classroom for inheriting history and disseminating knowledge, museums can present the latest archaeological research results to the public in a timely manner through exhibitions. In this regard, the "Starting from Guangzhou" exhibition can be said to have set a "Guangdong speed" that amazed domestic and foreign counterparts.
Li Zaoxin, vice president of the Nanyue King Museum, introduced that from the announcement of relevant major archaeological achievements in Guangdong in 2022, to the collection of 421 precious collections (sets) led by Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, and then to the official opening of the exhibition, the curatorial team only took one year. He concluded that "newness" is the biggest feature of this exhibition, and this innovative practice also provides a useful "Bay Area case" for the timely transformation of archaeological achievements into museum display and dissemination, and the high-quality development of cultural and museum undertakings.
Recently, Nandu and N video reporters interviewed Li Yan, a well-known archaeological expert, Xiao Dashun, director of the Institute of Underwater Archaeology of the Guangdong Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, and Pan Jie, a librarian of the Research Department of the Nanyue King Museum.
Amazing discovery
The sauce glaze jar unearthed from the wine cellar of the minister of Guangzhou in the Song Dynasty
It bears a high resemblance to similar artifacts on shipwrecks
As an ancient ship that Cantonese people are most familiar with, Nanhai I is also the most significant discovery of underwater archaeology in China so far, and has the reputation of "Dunhuang on the sea". For more than 30 years since its discovery in 1987, people have been able to confirm that this is a merchant ship from the early Southern Song Dynasty, which sank in the waters of Guangdong in 1183 AD, but there are still many mysteries unsolved. For example, how does it relate to the Pearl River Delta? Did it really call at Guangzhou, the largest port in the East during the Tang and Song dynasties? In 2023, the exhibition "From Guangzhou - 'Nanhai I' and the Maritime Silk Road" at the Nanyue King Museum has made a resounding response to the above concerns. The latest archaeological research results show that the "Nanhai I" not only visited Guangzhou, but also loaded ceramics produced in Guangdong, and started a new ocean voyage from the port of Guangzhou.
How do you come to a blockbuster conclusion? It should be said that it is the result of the unremitting questioning of several generations of Guangdong archaeologists. In recent years, the archaeological evidence of the Nanyue King Museum is the key to solving this problem.
On May 17, Xiao Dashun introduced in an interview with a reporter from Nandu that the archaeological community had long speculated that some of the ceramics on the "Nanhai I" might be related to the kiln mouth in Foshan, but because of the lack of understanding of this, he had to give up the research. Until 2018, the Nanyue King Museum launched the "Nanyue National Palace Department Site Excavation Data Collation Ten-Year Work Plan", the staff by sorting out the Song Dynasty building foundation site data of the Nanyue National Palace Administration site in Guangzhou, confirmed the location of the Song Dynasty Minister Wine Depot for the first time, and was surprised to find that a large number of sauce glaze jars with "wine sink", "alcohol" and "fragrance" and other wine seals were unearthed in the ruins, and its decorative style and vessel type, glaze color, fetal color, especially the text stamp with its own, is actually the same as "Nanhai I" Some of the similar artifacts on the wreck are highly similar.
This is different from the previous archaeological reports, and the understanding of relevant domestic scholars that such clay pots were "produced in Fujian".
At this time, an article published in 2018 by Huang Huiyi, a scholar at the University of Chinese in Hong Kong, attracted great attention from the archaeological community in Guangdong. The article pointed out that this kind of sauce glaze ware with printed text and printing on the "Nanhai I" should be produced by the kiln site of the Song Dynasty in Nanhai District, Foshan City.
A group of kiln sites in Guangdong, a metropolis that has flourished from the pre-Qin period to the present, and a well-known ancient merchant ship, can these "three points" really form a "line"? Xiao Dashun was excited, but he thought that more evidence was needed to prove the inference that some of the sauce glazes of the 'Nanhai I' were produced in Foshan. In short, go to the fieldwork.
Ceramic jars fired in Nanhai kiln in Foshan
It was put on the "Nanhai I" in Guangzhou
On August 13, 2021, Xiao Dashun, Li Yan, Li Zaoxin and others rushed to the site of the Song Dynasty kiln site in Nanhai District, Foshan. At the site of the strange stone kiln in Shishan Town, they walked through the streets and alleys to the north slope of Ximen Village, where the ground was littered with ceramic fragments that were "ordinary" in the eyes of the villagers. After confirming that this is a Song Dynasty kiln site and seeing its preservation status, Li Yan sincerely sighed: "This trip is really not in vain!" However, among the remains of the products of the strange stone kiln, they did not find a sauce glaze jar similar to the cultural relics of the "Nanhai I" at that time.
The group rushed to another kiln mouth - the Wentouling kiln site in Lishui Town to carefully explore. When it was almost time to close the team, Li Zaoxin found a sauce-colored ceramic fragment near a private house, with a rectangular frame, a unique pattern, and a mottled "hand wipe mark" tire glaze on the back, which made him feel "déjà vu". Through the comparison of archaeological typologies, the experts at the scene have been able to preliminarily conclude that it belongs to the same kind of pottery as the glazed jar with distinctive characteristics on the "Nanhai I".
After this exploration, the relevant units in Guangdong immediately organized and carried out rescue archaeological excavations. After months of painstaking work, a large number of similar relics were unearthed. At the same time, Guangdong archaeologists also hope to use modern scientific and technological means to double confirm the previous conclusions. They sent the fragmented specimens of the Qishi kiln and the Wentouling kiln, together with the cultural relics in the stratum of the Song Dynasty relics of the Nanhai No. 1 and the Nanyue National Palace Administration site, to the team of Cui Jianfeng of the School of Archaeology and Museums of Peking University for chemical composition analysis with a portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometer. "It's like doing a DNA comparison on a ceramic." Li Yan introduced, "The scientific and technological archaeology team led by Cui Jianfeng is participating in the establishment of a national cultural relics gene bank of Chinese civilization to collect data on the chemical composition of kiln ceramics from all over the country. The values measured by the specimens can be found and matched in this ancient ceramics database. ”
Li Zaoxin recalled: "I clearly remember that on October 1, 2021, when Mr. Cui Jianfeng informed us that it was determined that a considerable part of the sauce glaze jars found by the 'Nanhai I' and the Nanyue National Palace Administration were produced in the Nanhai Zhuyao kilns (Foshan, Guangdong), everyone was excited and excited at that time......
On July 1, 2022, the article "Archaeological Work of Kiln Site in Nanhai District, Foshan City Has Achieved Major Results-Clarifying the Guangdong Origin of Part of the Ceramics of the "Nanhai I" Shipwreck" written by Xiao Dashun was published in China Cultural Heritage News. The article mentions: "This work has opened up a new situation for the study of shipwreck archaeology, ceramic archaeology and the historical and cultural appearance of the Maritime Silk Road in the Song Dynasty. ”
Archaeologists have further discovered that these special sauce glaze jars, known as "Cantonese jars", fired by Nanhai kilns in Foshan, were once transported to Guangzhou in large quantities to store fine wine and spread overseas with merchant ships. The only known distribution center is the Song Dynasty Guangzhou Minister's Wine Depot located in the northwest of the site of the Nanyue National Palace Administration (now Beijing Road, Guangzhou). This discovery corroborates the records in various documents that the local government held banquets to entertain merchants and gave wine to them. The appearance of such "Guangdong tanks" on the "Nanhai I" provided key physical evidence for confirming that it had been to Guangzhou and went to sea offshore from Guangzhou Port.
"Canton Speed"
From the announcement of the blockbuster archaeological discovery to the opening of the exhibition
The curatorial team of the Nanyue King Museum took only one year
How long does it take for a major archaeological achievement to become public knowledge after it has caused a sensation in the academic community? This time, the curatorial team of the Nanyue King Museum took only one year. This is an unprecedented speed in the field of underwater archaeology in China, which is rare even within the scope of shipwreck archaeology in the world.
2023 marks the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative. For the exhibition team, this new exhibition on the theme of the Maritime Silk Road not only makes full use of and transforms the latest archaeological research results, but also hopes to be different from previous shipwreck exhibitions in terms of exhibition hall design, exhibition form and even narrative mode, so as to help a wider range of people "understand" the theme of the exhibition. On May 17, Pan Jie, curator of "From Guangzhou: 'Nanhai I' and the Maritime Silk Road", vividly described it: "Creating an exhibition is somewhat similar to creating a film. The curator wears many hats, both as a director and as a screenwriter. When choosing a topic, it is necessary to read a wide range of historical documents on the relevant topic, collect research information, and understand exhibitions on the same theme. When writing the outline, it is necessary to have an in-depth understanding of the connotation of the exhibits and make trade-offs with a large amount of information. And researchers are like the people behind the scenes, who are not often 'seen', but they are very important. The exhibition "Starting from Guangzhou", which was finally presented to the audience, was held in the exhibition area of the tomb of the king at the original site of the Guangzhou Minister's Wine Depot in the Song Dynasty and the present-day Nanyue King Museum, which was of great significance.
The exhibition opened on July 3, 2023 and lasts for 147 days. With an exhibition area of 720 square meters and a length of 260 meters, it is slowly unfolded in three chapters - "The Confusion of "Nanhai I", "The Journey of "Nanhai I", and "The Code of Departure from Guangzhou", with 480,000 online and offline visitors.
Among them, the "Gangshou Diary", which jumps out of the cultural relic-based thinking and draws on literary narratives, is one of the most heated initiatives. The "leader" is the "captain". Pan Jie told Nandu reporters: "So far, the 'Nanhai I' has not found a paper record of the voyage, which is very regrettable." However, we know that the sailors and seafarers of the Yuan Dynasty would record the navigation conditions with the 'Changing Path Book' and the 'Sea Route Needle Classic', which can be understood as a navigation manual depicted by means of words and maps. The word "more" refers to the time or distance it takes for a ship to sail from one place to another, and "road" refers to the direction of the voyage. It is reasonable to speculate that these 'nautical diaries', which have been handed down from generation to generation by hand, have existed much earlier, or at least have a rudimentary form. 'Nanhai I' also unearthed an inkstone, which should be the personal daily necessities of the crew. Based on this, we have compiled a diary from the captain's main perspective, self-reported experiences and observations, reconstructing the sailing path of the 'Nanhai I', allowing the audience to 'travel through history' and realize 'dialogue between the past and the present'. ”
Try to reconstruct history with settlement analysis methods
Restore the process of loading, sailing, and sinking
A page about Guangzhou in the diary of the first chapter of the program says that on the first day of December in the year of the Lunar New Year, the promoter of the Guangzhou Shipping Division held a banquet in Haishan Tower to entertain the foreign merchants, "I and several large shippers, acquaintances, fire chiefs, and helmsmen were invited to participate, and it is said that the banquet of the city is the most prosperous, and I only knew that this was true after participating...... The latter also describes in detail the scene of local officials and merchants enjoying themselves, the magic acrobatic performances at the banquet, and the wine and food from different regions.
Of course, the time, place, and route of the diary are all based on the in-depth study of the cultural relics and related documents unearthed from the "Nanhai I" in recent years. Pan Jie introduced: "The year of '癸卯年' comes from the blue and white glaze printed double-series jar with the ink script of '癸卯年' in the exhibition, which is also a key chronological artifact to determine the sinking time of 'Nanhai I'; The general principle of the time when the ship sailed to Mingzhou (present-day Ningbo, Zhejiang Province), Quanzhou, Guangzhou, and Wenzhou (present-day Guanghai Town, Taishan City, Guangdong Province) was chosen in winter, because the ancients sailed by the monsoon, leaving China in winter and returning in summer. Among them, the time when the 'Nanhai I' traveled to Quanzhou was 'the twenty-third day of the leap winter month', which is a small easter egg. There is a stone carving in the year of the sinking of the 'Nanhai I' on Jiuri Mountain in Quanzhou, which clearly records the time of the wind prayer ceremony that year is 'the twenty-fourth day of the leap winter month', and we believe that the 'Nanhai I' is very likely to have participated in that wind prayer. ”
Pan Jie said that the curatorial team had a certain degree of confidence in the innovation of the Gangshou Diary from the beginning; After the opening of the exhibition, the curiosity and enthusiasm of the audience exceeded the imagination of the creators. "After watching the exhibition, one of the visitors pulled the volunteer and said that he especially wanted to know how the Gangshou diary was born, and I also gave him an answer."
In addition, the exhibition has been carefully designed to further enhance the presentation. The prologue combines the abstract southeast coastal route of China with port landmarks, and uses simulated scenery devices such as cabins, sails and the Big Dipper to create an artistic scene of "connecting the stars across the ocean". The exhibition item of "Guangzhou Banquet" set up a digital projection of the banquet simulation scene, accompanied by the recitation of Song poems "Haishan Tower", and the display of wine and food utensils, so that the historical scenes are vividly staged; The addition of multimedia interactive means and interactive games creates an immersive viewing experience.
"Reconstruction" and "reproduction" are the key words of this exhibition. But this is not only an exhibition methodology, but also a profound academic thought behind it.
Li Yan introduced that the exhibition as a whole is carried out under the conceptual framework of "settlement archaeology". In terrestrial field archaeology, archaeological materials can be used from this perspective to reconstruct social history. Li Yan's mentor, the Chinese archaeologist Douyan Wenming, who passed away at the age of 92 this year, left behind classic works in this field.
Under the influence of Mr. Yan Wenming, Li Yan regarded the "Nanhai I" as a "sailing settlement", with multiple cabins equivalent to multi-chamber tombs, and tried to use the method of settlement analysis to reconstruct the history of the ship, and restore the process of loading, normal navigation, sinking, and post-sinking, in order to interpret more information about the social life at that time. In his words, although it is never possible to "arrive", it is possible to "keep approaching". This kind of curatorial thinking also brings a new way to open the "Nanhai I" shipwreck. During the exhibition, visitors can form their own knowledge system about the history of "Nanhai I" and maritime trade.
Bay Area synergy
Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao have deepened research cooperation on the Nanhai I
Provide support for the cross-border joint application of the Maritime Silk Road for World Heritage Sites
Along the lines of settlement archaeology, the exhibition "From Guangzhou: Nanhai I and the Maritime Silk Road" connects for the first time the origin and distribution of ancient goods, as well as the transoceanic trade routes, and this clear and complete "logistics trajectory" is an integral part of the Maritime Silk Road in the Song Dynasty. Therefore, the relevant results can not only deepen people's understanding of the "Nanhai I" shipwreck, but also fully explain the historical status and role of Guangdong in the Maritime Silk Road trade since the Tang and Song dynasties, and provide important support for the cross-border joint application of the Maritime Silk Road for World Heritage Status.
As a symbol of the Maritime Silk Road from the Bay Area to the world, the "Canton Can" produced by the kilns of the South China Sea carries Chinese wine across the ocean and fragrance to the world. The ruins of Butuan in the Philippines, the ruins of Fort Canning in Singapore, India, Japan and other countries, and even Kenya in Africa were later excavated.
The story of the Maritime Silk Road in the Bay Area will naturally be told by Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao. Li Zaoxin introduced that the institute and 15 cultural and museum units and universities in the Greater Bay Area jointly planned and held the exhibition, bringing together 421 pieces (sets) of precious cultural relics, and the Development Bureau of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government and the Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Macao Special Administrative Region Government are also among the guiding units.
Pan Jie recalled to the reporter that in the curation process, they received strong support from many units. "The Hong Kong Heritage Discovery Centre has selected exhibits from a large number of specimens of cultural relics from the Song and Yuan dynasties excavated at the site of Sacred Mountain in Kowloon, Hong Kong, and the cultural relics transported this time are all on display for the first time to mainland audiences. The Chinese University of Hong Kong helped us connect with the excavators of several famous overseas shipwrecks, the "Blackstone" and "Intan Shipwrecks", and provided exclusive information......"In the exhibition, you can also see a number of pieces of porcelain unearthed from the Penny's Bay site on Lantau Island in Hong Kong and the site of St. Paul's College in Macau, which are produced in the mainland and are the physical witnesses of Chinese porcelain from the Greater Bay Area to the world.
The research results of "part of the porcelain of 'Nanhai I' are produced in Guangdong" are just the beginning. Xiao Dashun, who is active in the archaeological front line of "Nanhai I", said: "The prospects are broad, but there is a long way to go. Although we work with a 'problem awareness', we do not solve individual or partial problems in a preconceived notion. At present, we are carrying out comprehensive archaeological sorting work on the 'Nanhai I' and building a relevant database. ”
Xiao Dashun introduced that the archaeologists of "Nanhai I", under the guidance of the concept of settlement archaeology and other basic archaeological methods such as archaeological stratigraphy and typology, tirelessly collected the elemental data of the cargo in the cabin, collected all the archaeological excavation information, space and layer information, basic form, production decoration, measurement data, etc. of each cultural relics into the same database, and then used the basic methods of archaeology to sort out these data and carry out statistical analysis around the topics that scholars are concerned aboutand discuss the mystery of "Nanhai I" with the academic community and the public.
The "genetic level" mapping of the origin of porcelain is carried out
"From Guangzhou" Exhibition Will "Go to Sea"
The archaeological results of Nanhai I have been fruitful, but there is still a lot of work to be done. Xiao Dashun said, for example, more than 100,000 pieces (sets) of porcelain have been excavated from the shipwreck, some of which are produced in Guangdong kilns, as well as Longquan celadon, Jingdezhen Qingbai porcelain, Dehua white porcelain, etc., in addition, there are many ceramics whose origin is not clear, which needs to be further classified and studied; In addition to ceramic cargo, there are also interdisciplinary and cross-industry joint research topics such as gold, silver, copper, iron and other metal objects, animal and plant remains, microorganisms, DNA, etc., waiting for scholars to decipher and jointly depict a historical panorama of the interaction between the Southern Song Dynasty and overseas.
Li Yan believes that the research method embodied in the exhibition "Starting from Guangzhou" provides a model worthy of reference for similar research in the future. "By comprehensively considering the origin and distribution center, and making full use of scientific and technological archaeological means to carry out 'genetic-level' correspondence on the porcelain origin of the shipwreck, if this model can be promoted in the archaeology of the 'Nanhai I' or other shipwrecks, we can imagine how many historical details will be displayed in front of us!"
This process may be long, but as the archaeological excavation of the Nanhai I continues to advance, if we can know where more cargo comes from, where it is distributed and where it is finally sold, we can almost go down to the "capillary level" of the maritime network trade system. In the future, Chinese will be expected to clear the clouds and fog and more truly "see" the daily life and trade of the Song Dynasty people more than 800 years ago.
As for the topics that Li Yan is personally interested in, he also gave a brief example to the reporter of Nandu, "For example, the ink book about the 'Nanhai I', that is, some words written on the porcelain, we think are marks made by merchants at that time. This is useful information for reconstructing the scale and quantity of porcelain they sold, as well as their preference for kilns. ”
Towards the end of the interview, the reporter from Nandu learned a good news: this year, the exhibition "Starting from Guangzhou - 'Nanhai I' and the Maritime Silk Road" will be expanded and upgraded, and the exhibition will be held "at sea". The curatorial team said that they will continue to deepen the research on the cultural heritage value of the Maritime Silk Road and tell the story of the Maritime Silk Road in the new era.
Co-ordinator: Nandu reporter Xiang Xueni Yu Yijing
Written by: Nandu reporter Hou Jingjing Photo provided by the interviewee