Zhang Jianguo: Why do helan Mountain rock paintings have the uniqueness of the world?
China News Service Yinchuan, October 26 Title: Why do helan Mountain rock paintings have the uniqueness of the world? ——Interview with Zhang Jianguo, former director of yinchuan world rock art museum
China News Service reporter Li Peishan
"Time is silent, but only stone can speak." Rock paintings from five continents and more than 150 countries and regions in the world are precious cultural heritage left by the ancestors and an important historical material for people to understand the early human civilization.
Why do petroglyphs around the world have similarities thousands of miles away? Why do helan Mountain rock paintings have the uniqueness of the world? Is china's petroglyph application expected to break through? Zhang Jianguo, deputy director of the Helan Mountain Rock Art Management Office in Yinchuan City, Ningxia, and former director of the Yinchuan World Rock Art Museum, recently accepted an exclusive interview with China News Agency's "East and West Question" to make an in-depth analysis of the relevant topics.
The interview transcript is summarized below:
China News Service: Rock paintings are a way of recording earlier than words, what kind of cultural characteristics are contained?
Zhang Jianguo: Rock painting is a stone carving culture, and the ancestors used stone tools as tools to depict and record production and life. Petroglyphs are distributed all over the world, and more than 75 million have been found so far, which is of worldliness.
Many people say that petroglyphs are the language of human "childhood". Rock paintings contain linguistic logic, including subjects or auxiliary expressions. Linguistic is one of its cultural characteristics, which can be understood as a literal relic, and its function is to record, educate, sacrifice, etc.
Petroglyphs are also historical. From the perspective of evolution, the world's petroglyphs may eventually construct a prehistoric archive of mankind.
As motifs, petroglyphs are also expressions of visual art, with artistry. In the creative process, there are both realistic content and imaginative parts.
Interestingly, oracle-like petroglyphs have been found in the Americas, and petroglyphs in northern China have Symbols of Serb culture... Far away from thousands of mountains and rivers, ancient humans seem to communicate through petroglyphs. We systematically compare the eastern and western petroglyphs, and the similarity of the motifs once again confirms the cosmopolitan nature of the petroglyphs. The thinking logic of the ancestors to understand the world is basically the same, and traces of human migration can be found in many petroglyphs.
Densely distributed rock paintings of Helan Mountain. Photo by China News Service reporter Li Peishan
China News Service: How were petroglyphs discovered and studied by modern people?
Zhang Jianguo: Dating is the number one problem in the study of petroglyphs. The earliest petroglyphs found so far appeared about 45,000 years ago, how old are the petroglyphs? There are still many secrets to be solved.
The main basis for foreign archaeologists to determine the dating of petroglyphs is the use of carbon-14 technology to determine the carbon elements in painted petroglyphs. Since many overseas petroglyphs remain in caves, archaeologists also conduct chronological analysis through mineral pigments attached to the petroglyphs and surrounding cultural strata.
Western scholars generally believe that in 1627, a Norwegian teacher painted the first image of a prehistoric petroglyph in Bohanslang, Sweden. In fact, chinese written records of petroglyphs are a thousand years earlier than in Europe. The "Han Feizi" of the Warring States period records: "Zhao Lord's father ordered the workers to hook the ladder and spread the edge of the wu, carving sparse human tracks on it, three feet wide and five feet long..." "Sparse human footprints" is a footprint petroglyph. The Discovery and Record of Petroglyphs by Northern Wei Li Daoyuan's "Notes on Water Classics" is more detailed, involving more than 20 petroglyphs in Xinjiang, Qinghai, Ningxia and other provinces and regions.
Although it has long been recorded, petroglyphs have truly become a discipline in China, after the large-scale discovery and systematic investigation of rock paintings in the 1970s and 1980s.
Animal portraits in rock paintings of Helan Mountain. Photo by China News Service reporter Li Peishan
China News Service: The research and conservation of Chinese petroglyphs is currently in line with international standards. What are the similarities and differences between the East and the West in the study and protection of petroglyphs?
Zhang Jianguo: Regarding the study of rock paintings, some people tend to explain the cultural connotations, and some people tend to solve the problem of generational discontinuity, but all the research is based on how to protect rock paintings.
Most Western scholars hold the view that reducing intervention is protection. But unlike cave petroglyphs, helan Mountain petroglyphs are almost completely exposed in their natural environment, with petroglyphs attached to the rock surface. Over time, empty drums and spalling are inevitable and may disappear completely without intervention protection. What we need to do is to use technology to slow down its disappearance and let more future generations see this precious legacy.
From July to September is the peak of flash floods in Helan Mountain, and the petroglyphs are also threatened by impact and destruction, so we will carry out flood control and reinforcement projects to ensure that the petroglyphs and the surrounding environmental protection are opened simultaneously.
In recent years, we have also worked to solve the disease of the weathering of the petroglyph body. Through the use of grouting, sealing, cleaning, reinforcement and other measures, 20 seriously weathered Helan Mountain petroglyphs were rescued and protected, which solved the problems of shedding, cracking, loosening, moss erosion and other problems to a certain extent.
The Helan Mountain Petroglyph Digital Preservation Project, which has been implemented since 2019, has completed the accurate scanning of rock art panoramas and immovable rock paintings, and the next step will be to carry out data retention, classification, disease analysis and data management of rock paintings.
We also applied for the preliminary survey and research project of the protection of rock art in Helan Mountain, using modern scientific and technological means to do a good job in the research of the safety status of rock paintings, identifying the influencing factors and damage mechanisms of rock painting weathering and destruction, and making a hierarchical assessment of the preservation status, evolution trend and health status of rock paintings, providing a basis for protection and restoration and reinforcement work, and tracking and monitoring and evaluation of the effect.
The most representative "Sun God" human face petroglyph in the Helan Mountain petroglyph. Photo by China News Service reporter Li Peishan
China News Service: Compared with other petroglyphs, what is special about the Helan Mountain petroglyphs? Why was the World Rock Art Museum located in Ningxia?
Zhang Jianguo: The helan mountain petroglyphs are located on the cliffs within 1,000 meters of the helan gougou mouth and on the slopes of the flood fan outside the ditch, and there are more than 6,000 petroglyphs of five major types of animals, plants, human bodies, human faces and symbols, which are famous in the world for their rich forms of expression, concentrated distribution areas and deep cultural connotations.
Since 1991, several international petroglyph summits have been held in the Helan Mountain Petroglyph Site Area, and there are several advantages for the world petroglyph museum to be located here.
Compared with the "no man's land" petroglyphs, the helan Mountain petroglyphs are close to the central city of Yinchuan. It covers almost all the contents of the world's petroglyphs, including animals, symbols, hunting, grazing, fighting, dancing, etc., and the surrounding natural environment is superior, and the conditions for people to visit and learn are remarkable.
In the rock paintings of Helan Mountain, there are more than 700 human faces, the most representative one is called "Sun God", which is carved on a stone wall more than 40 meters from the ground. The "Sun God" has a line on its head, a rounded face, heavily ringed eyes, long eyelashes, and is very powerful. Such human face petroglyphs are rare in China, and most of them are concentrated in the 11 countries of the Pacific Rim. Some experts speculate that in ancient times, there were a large number of residents under the Helan Mountain, and even tribes were formed. In Helan Mountain, such a concentrated and rich group of human faces has also become the focus of research in the rock art community.
The World Petroglyph Museum is located in Ningxia and has become the first large-scale petroglyph museum in China. The museum has selected 546 representative petroglyphs from all over the world, including rubbings, photographs, objects and reproductions, focusing on the content of more than 200 petroglyph points from 31 countries and more than 200 rock paintings, "please come out" hidden in the mountains, and "please come out" to the outside world, so that immovable cultural relics can be "alive" and play a role in edutainment.
In fact, the uniqueness of Helan Mountain rock paintings is that they have the commonality of the whole world, and here you can see all over the world and all types of rock paintings, so it has the conditions for the establishment of the World Rock Art Museum.
The Helan Mountain Petroglyph Sanctuary is located at the eastern foot of Helan Mountain. Photo by China News Service reporter Li Peishan
China News Service: At present, more than 30 petroglyph points have been listed as world cultural heritage, but why is only one of China, as a major rock painting country, listed in the catalog?
Zhang Jianguo: In 2016, the Huashan petroglyphs in Zuojiang, Guangxi Province, became the first petroglyph relics in China, which is a great encouragement for petroglyph workers and researchers.
Zuojiang Huashan petroglyphs are painted petroglyphs, painted with animal blood and mineral pigments. The Helan Mountain petroglyphs are typical northern petroglyphs, which were made by primitive humans using stone tools to grind on the rock walls, and the two are very different. Helan Mountain petroglyphs have the conditions for applying for heritage - originality, authenticity, and uniqueness.
The application for the helan mountain petroglyphs was officially launched in 2004, and we have been making various preparations, and the key is still to improve the protection and research level of petroglyphs.
China is a big country with rock art resources, but there are very few rock art researchers, and it is crucial to cultivate professional talents. The research results of petroglyphs also need to be disseminated to the public, so that the public can build a sense of protection, and the study tour is a successful attempt. In the future, we also need to go into more schools and communities to make the concept of rock painting protection deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. (End)
Expert Profile:
Zhang Jianguo, deputy director of the Helan Mountain Rock Art Management Office in Yinchuan City, Ningxia, and former director of the Yinchuan World Rock Art Museum. China News Service reporter Xie Yu photographed
Zhang Jianguo, deputy director of the Helan Mountain Petroglyph Management Office in Yinchuan City, was the director of the Helan Mountain World Rock Art Museum. Graduated from the Department of History of Ningxia University in 2001, he has been engaged in the protection and management of rock paintings in Helan Mountain for 20 years, and has successively engaged in the field survey of rock paintings, completed the survey of 12 mountain passes in Yinchuan City, promoted the application of modern science and technology in rock painting protection, participated in the flood control of rock paintings in Helan Mountain, the reinforcement of dangerous rock masses and the treatment of mudslides, the rescue protection of rock art bodies, the mapping of rock paintings and digital retention and other protection projects and projects.
Source: China News Network