Bronze bells and other artifacts from the exhibition “Cultural Relics and Ancient Books on the Formation of a Strong Community Sense of the Chinese Nation” being held at the National Palace Museum of National Palace Folk Culture in Beijing.Chinese daily newspaper
The current exhibition connects the stories of the societies and peoples that have come together over thousands of years to form Chinese civilization.
A notable event in Chinese history that heralds the unity of different ethnic groups is the Tang Dynasty (618-907), when Songtsen Gampo, the ruler of Tibet’s Tubo regime, which lasted from the 7th to the 9th century, and Princess Wencheng. It’s marriage. The story turned into a family story.
Emperor Li Shimin (599-649) of the Tang Dynasty arranged for the princess to travel from present-day Xi’an, Shaanxi Province (the capital of the Tang Dynasty) to present-day Xizang Autonomous Region to marry Songtsen Ganpo, greatly increasing the intimacy between the two countries. I raised it. Han and Tibetan peoples. She brought tools, seeds, grain, books, medicine, musical instruments, and musicians.
An exhibition at the National Museum of Ethnic Culture in Beijing features a drum and a guqin (Chinese seven-stringed harp) that belonged to a princess some 1,400 years ago.
This guqin has a special curved shape. The style was popular during the Tang Dynasty, but very few examples survive, said Tao Ying, the museum’s director. They are mainly found in wall paintings and ancient paintings.
“The drums and guqin were kept at the Jokhang Monastery in Lhasa, Xizang City, and have been handed down until they become part of our museum’s collection. This is the first time they are on display,” Tao said.
Organized by the National Ethnic Affairs Commission, the “Cultural Relics and Ancient Books Exhibition on the Formation of a Strong Community Sense of the Chinese Nation” features more than 1,500 relics and ancient books that tell the story of how China became a unified, multi-ethnic nation. Old books are on display. .
“The main theme of this exhibition is the development of Chinese civilization. The exhibits testify to the long history of Chinese culture and the communication and integration between different ethnic groups in this historical process,” Tao said. .
“They demonstrate the strong unity and centripetal force of the Chinese nation.”
Tao explained that the exhibits were selected from 150,000 artifacts and 510,000 old books in museums affiliated with the commission. These items include tools, seals, coins, costumes, ritual objects, calligraphy, paintings, etc. The texts are about political governance, China’s ethnic history, cultural integration, and religion, she added.
take shape
The painted clay vessels in the National Museum of Ethnology of China are typical prehistoric relics produced in the northwestern region under the influence of the Yanshao culture, which dates back 7,000 to 5,000 years ago to the Central Plains of China, and are one of the highlights. It’s one.
According to He Chen, a researcher at the museum, Yangshao is known as the “painted ceramic culture,” and these items have become symbols of civilization.
For example, one 5,100-4,700-year-old clay pot on display witnessed the spread of the Yanshao culture into what is now northwestern China and its evolution into the Majiaya culture, which dates back 4,000 to 5,000 years ago.
He said research has shown that the salamander pattern on the bottles comes from the Yanshao style of painting birds on pottery, but each has its own unique characteristics. This shows the influence of Yangshao on the northwest region and the characteristics of the region.
“After the birth of the Majiaya culture, the Yanshao culture continued to spread to present-day Sichuan and Xizang in southwestern China, and to today’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region,” he explains.
“Then, the 4,000-year-old Qijia culture (a continuation of the Majiyao culture) continued to influence other cultures established by the ancient Qiang people of the northwest during the Bronze Age.”
In this way, Yangshao culture spread and deepened. And the artifacts on display are important evidence of the interaction between ancient cultures from different regions, which probably led to the origin and formation of a pluralistic and integrated Chinese civilization, she added.
luxury footwear
She also emphasizes shoes with “toe springs,” or upward curves at the tips.
According to researchers, this type of shoe was commonly worn by people in China’s Central Plains region since the Shang Dynasty (16th century BC to 11th century BC). The long robes and skirts they wore dragged on the ground, and their shoes held up the hems to keep them from tripping. Over time, this became a feature of ancient Chinese footwear.
Although the popularity of these shoes gradually declined during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, paintings from the time often depicted people wearing these shoes. It was.
“This reflects a cultural concept. When you think of ancient people, you think of people wearing these kinds of shoes,” he says.
The examples on display are not ancient, but modern pairs made by the Zhuang, Miao, Sui, and Yao ethnic groups.
“This means that although shoes with toe springs are not commonly worn by today’s Han Chinese, other ethnic groups in southwestern and northwestern China have preserved this style, typical of the central plains of ancient China. “This shows that there is,” says Professor He.
“This also shows that ethnic groups other than the Han Chinese have similarly inherited the aesthetics of the Central Plains and developed a common aesthetic perspective.”
valuable page
Many of the books on display are very special, and some are included in the national list of rare old books published by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
One example on display is part of a copy of Pearl in the Palm, printed in the early 20th century.
It is a bilingual Chinese-Sexia term written by scholars of the Western Xia Dynasty (1038-1227), a powerful dynasty that ruled northwestern China until its conquest by Genghis Khan. This is a collection. This was the key to deciphering the Western Xia script, which fell into disuse with the end of the dynasty.
“This book was written in 1190 and is one of the oldest bilingual textbooks in China,” said Sun Bojun, a researcher at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
“The author states in the preface that for the people of Central China, learning the languages of other ethnic groups is an important way to cooperate with non-Han people, and learning Chinese is a way for other ethnic groups to learn Chinese culture. “China’s central plains has the potential to help development,” Sun said.
The author added that his purpose in compiling the book was that he believed that ultimately, by learning from other cultures, we would become “virtuous people.”
Other valuable ancient documents on display include the Qing Dynasty book Southwest Yi Zhi, which describes the ancient Yi people’s understanding of the origins of humanity and the cosmos, as well as the political, economic, and cultural aspects of the ancient Yi people. ” (chronology of the Yi people of southwestern China). society.
“Currently, this is the only copy of this book in existence,” Tao said. “Since it is a paper craft, the conditions for displaying it are very strict, so we rarely display it.”
Another unusual exhibit is the bilingual Tibetan Buddhist canon, Kangyur, printed in Tibetan and Mongolian during the Qing Dynasty. According to Tao, there are only eight Mongolian books in the world, and it has been on the national list of rare old books since 2008.
“Until now, only researchers read this book when conducting research,” Tao said. “This is the first time it will be open to the public.