In Lanzhou, in addition to the authentic beef noodles and hand-grabbed lamb, there is also the Gansu Provincial Museum. The most well-known cultural relic in the museum's collection is the copper galloping horse, also known as the horse chao dragon sparrow, which is also a Chinese tourism symbol. Of course, as an important first-class museum in the nine provinces along the Yellow River, there is more than one national treasure in the collection. This time I came to the Gansu Provincial Museum to shoot a very important gold cultural relic- an ostrich-shaped gold ornament. Regarding its cultural relics value, archaeologists describe it as "the only pre-Qin gold product in existence, which is an important physical evidence for the study of Qin culture."
Time back about 30 years ago, from 1992 to 1993, the Qin Tomb in Dabaozi Mountain, Lixian County, Gansu Province, was stolen by cultural relics dealers, a large number of cultural relics were stolen, the whereabouts are unknown, and many important cultural relics and tomb information are gone. A year later, in 1994, archaeologist Han Wei saw a number of early Qin cultural relics in Paris, including 1 pair of golden tigers, 4 pairs of bird-shaped gold ornaments, and more than 30 small gold ornaments. Around the same time, the Museum of Gemmei in France included a batch of gold jewelry from the Grand Fort Mountain. The cultural relics that appeared in Paris just have a high degree of similarity with the remaining cultural relics in the stolen excavation of the Qin Tomb in Dabaozi Mountain, and it is very likely that they are precious cultural relics that were illegally lost out of the country after being stolen.
The Chinese side and the French side began negotiations, respectively from the archaeology and law two chains of "double evidence", and finally confirmed that this is the stolen cultural relics of the Qin Tomb in Dabaozi Mountain, but the transnational cultural relics recovery can not be so smooth, after nearly 20 years of negotiations, in the joint efforts of the Chinese and French governments and non-governmental people, lost overseas for more than 20 years 32 pieces of Qin gold jewelry in the Spring and Autumn Period returned to the motherland. The State Administration of Cultural Heritage decided to allocate all of it to the Gansu Provincial Museum for collection and display. The return of this batch of lost cultural relics is the first typical case of the mainland taking the initiative to recover cultural relics and succeeding, and it is also the first case of successful recovery of cultural relics through official law. From the perspective of cultural relics value, it is more significant, it is different from the Central Plains tradition of bronze and jade as a ceremonial system, and the Qin people regard it as a status symbol. This should have been influenced by Western culture, and these gold tablets may be proof of early dealings with the Eurasian steppes. In the same period, a large number of car ornaments and gold ornaments of the casting process were unearthed from the aristocratic cemetery of Majiayuan Xirong in Zhangjiachuan, Gansu Province, which is located at the intersection of grassland civilization and farming civilization, which also confirmed the mutual exchange and influence between different civilizations and cultures in this region at that time. The Dabaozi Mountain Qin Tomb excavated by it is the first of the four major cemeteries of the Qin people recorded in the historical documents, the Xizhi Mausoleum. The excavation of this cemetery has solved the two thousand-year-old mysteries of the "Xiqu Cemetery" and the "Birthplace of the Qin People".
Regarding the use of these gold ornaments, due to their large size and holes in the edges, they should be ornaments, possibly used to decorate coffins or carriages and horses. What is the special meaning of the bird shape of the gold ornament? In the "Book of Poetry and Shang Ode", there is such a record that "the Bird of Heavenly Destiny descends to give birth to the Shang". It is about a woman named Jiandi, who, after swallowing the eggs laid by the "Bird of Chancery", becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son named Qi. Qi, that is, Fu Bo, is the ancestor of the legendary Shang. In addition, it is recorded that the ancestors of the Qin people were a branch of the Huaxia tribe living in the east, which is today's Shandong area, and was a clan of Yin Shang nobles with the surname of Yin. Later, because some members of the Yin clan participated in the Rebellion of the Three Prisons instigated by Wu Geng, they were punished by Zhou Gong Ji Dan, so that the Yin people living in the east were forced to move west and became commoners.
The Qin people regarded the "Xuan Bird" as the totem of their ancestors and tribes. The bird ornamentation of the gold ornament represents the Qin people's reverence and yearning for their ancestors. In addition, the bird is a ferocious animal that represents the brave and martial character of the Qin people. With their indomitable character, the Qin people, from Qin Feizi raising horses for the Zhou royal family, to the Zhou Tianzi fiefdom Of Jinhou, Qin BaxiRong, through several generations of cultivation by Qin Xianggong, Qin Mugong, Qin Xiaogong, etc., laid the foundation for future generations, and through the struggle of more than ten generations of Qin people, the first emperor swept through Liuhe and unified the world. Cars on the same track, books and texts, and unified weights and measures opened the arrival of the first era of great unification in the history of the Chinese nation. At the same time, the Qin state also paved a smooth road for the arrival of the Han Empire, and also laid an immortal monument to the great process of Chinese civilization and the pluralistic integration of the Chinese nation.
"The world is so big, I just want to go home", cultural relics have a spirit, my generation has the luck, if you have the opportunity to go to the Gansu Provincial Museum, stop in front of this batch of cultural relics for a moment, look at these precious cultural relics that have crossed the ocean and returned through all kinds of difficulties.
Photo of this issue: Zhang Wenbin
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