The two horses of the Zhaoling Tomb of Taizong of the Tang Dynasty are the treasures of the United States University of Pennsylvania Museum. Weighing nearly 8 tons, how did they drift from Jiuzhi Mountain in Liquan County, Shaanxi Province, to a foreign land?
The Jincun tomb in the northeastern suburbs of Luoyang, is the tomb of several Eastern Zhou kings and their subordinate burials, thousands of cultural relics have been unearthed, but almost all of them have been lost overseas, and the cultural relics unearthed in Chuanjin Village that have survived in China have only three pieces recognized. The Royal Ontario Museum of Canada has the richest collection of Jincun artifacts, so did William Charles White, a missionary in the country, participate in tomb robbing?
Huo Hongwei, a researcher at the National Museum of China, is mainly engaged in archaeological research in the Han and Tang dynasties, and has presided over the excavation of the ruins of the west city wall of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty Wangcheng in Luoyang, the brick kiln site in Guochenglifang District outside Luoyang in the Sui and Tang dynasties, and hundreds of tombs in the Han, Jin, Tang and Song dynasties. In 2012, he began to study Chinese cultural relics lost overseas, and has seen many treasures up close in many museums and art galleries in the United States, United Kingdom, and Japan. "The cultural relics excavated at the site are completely different from the cultural relics that have been lost overseas. When I saw them overseas, I felt like four words, 'heartbreaking'. ”
Huo Hongwei selected some representative overseas cultural relics and wrote a new book, "Looking at Chang'an: Chinese Stories Collected by Overseas Museums", which either restores the chain of evidence that cultural relics were lost overseas, or rediscovers the history of annihilation behind cultural relics. He hopes that more people will learn about their past and present lives before they embark on their journey home in the future.
Looking at Chang'an: Chinese Stories from Overseas Museum Collections
Huo Hongwei
Life · Reading · New Knowledge Joint Bookstore, May 2024 Edition
When archaeologists see artifacts overseas
Huo Hongwei is a native of Luoyang. As the ancient capital of the Thirteen Dynasties, Luoyang has too much history buried deep in. "When I was a child, I often heard my parents say that the treasure or family property left by the ancestors must be kept well, and if the descendants sell the treasure or family property, it is called a ruined family. So I had an heirloom complex very early on. ”
His real interest in Chinese cultural relics lost overseas began in 1985. At that time, his school opened a course called "Luoyang Cultural Relics", and the teachers talked about the overseas loss of Luoyang cultural relics, especially during the Republic of China, the history of the serious theft of the Eastern Zhou Tomb in Jincun, Huo Hongwei was deeply stung, "I never read tomb robbery novels." ”
After graduating from university in 1988, Huo Hongwei engaged in archaeological excavation work in the Luoyang Cultural Relics Working Group, which he did for more than ten years. In 1991, he presided over the cleaning of a well-preserved Tang Dynasty Sancai tomb in Pishan, which was a very valuable experience in his archaeological career. The ancient capital of Luoyang tomb can be described as "ten tombs and nine empty", the reason why this tomb can be completely preserved is because there is a modern tomb on it, when the tomb robbers drilled with the "Luoyang shovel", they found that it was a modern tomb and gave up.
The owner of this Tang tomb is called Qu Tu Jiza, the grandson of the Tang Dynasty general Qu Tutong, who was only 13 years old when he died. After the burial utensils were excavated, for the sake of safety, Huo Hongwei and the PLA soldiers used straw to weave ropes, bundled the cultural relics and loaded them into military vehicles, and then held them one by one in their arms, and then transported them to the local cultural and museum department for proper safekeeping. At that time, he was holding a Tang Sancai official figurine.
In 2012, Huo Hongwei went abroad for the first time to United States the University of Pennsylvania to do research on the collection of Chinese Han and Tang Dynasty cultural relics. The Penn Museum is one of the seven largest collections of Chinese antiquities in the United States, where Huo Hongwei saw the Chinese Tang Sancai. I didn't expect to meet the "old man" in a foreign country like this, Huo Hongwei was very emotional. At the end of an article on Chinese antiquities in the Penn Museum, his prose changed from rigorous and standardized to sensual and delicate, recalling in detail the scene of the archaeological excavation of the tomb of Qutu Jizha in the Tang Dynasty at Pishan in Luoyang: "When I recall it now, I feel so happy to hold Tang Sancai, as if dreaming back to the Tang Dynasty and talking to the Tang people." ”
That trip to Penn, the biggest emotional impact on Huo Hongwei was to see two of the six horses of Zhaoling, "Sa Lu Zi" and "Fist Mao". At the beginning of the founding of the Tang Dynasty, Li Shimin was still fighting in the south and the north, and many war horses were killed. When the mausoleum was built, Li Shimin ordered people to carve the six war horses he rode on the stone during his lifetime, "it is an unprecedented practice in the stone carving of the mausoleum in the mainland, representing the pinnacle of Chinese sculpture art, and the ten reliefs on the Monument to the People's Heroes in Tiananmen Square today were borrowed from the expression of the six horses carved by Zhaoling." ”
For thousands of years, "Sa Lu Purple" and "Fist Mao Yan" have guarded Li Shimin and Empress Changsun together with four other stone carvings of horses. Today, two of the steeds are separated from the university museum across the ocean. The huge contrast between time, space, and history hit him, "I really wanted to let them return to their homeland at that time, but I was a scholar, and I couldn't do anything. I could only pick up the pen and faithfully record the overseas cultural relics I saw."
Sort out the chain of evidence for the theft and loss of cultural relics as much as possible
When writing "Wang'an", Huo Hongwei's focus was to try his best to sort out the evidence chain of cultural relics that were stolen, sold, circulated, and even lost overseas based on the latest archaeological excavation data and academic research results.
In 2002~2003, archaeologists discovered the cornerstone of the Tang Dynasty carved by the six horses of Zhaoling through large-scale archaeology. Some scholars speculate that during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, there was a major earthquake in Guanzhong, and the six horses of Zhaoling may also be seriously damaged, so during the period from Wanli in the Ming Dynasty to Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty, the people reset and maintained the stone Jun. Huo Hongwei said that this archaeological discovery uncovered the original environment of the two stone carvings in the Penn Museum, and was the first "displacement" of them from Liquan County, Shaanxi Province, to Penn.
The two horses underwent five displacements before they were finally displaced, and the key exit links were previously mysterious, but Penn Museum records show that they came from private donations. A few years ago, Chen Wenping, a professor at Shanghai University, found out that Lu Qinzhai, an antique dealer, and others had stolen and sold them into the country, and the Beiyang government had planned to arrest Lu Qinzhai. "So the Penn Museum's two horses, although they were obtained through donations, are still illegal." Huo Hongwei said.
For many years, there have been different opinions about whether the missionary Huai Luguang was involved in the theft of the Jincun tomb. One of the most widely circulated theories is that Huai Luguang used his status as an Anglican bishop in Kaifeng to participate in the excavation of the tomb.
After combing through the historical data, Huo Hongwei believes that during the crazy excavation of the Jincun Tomb in 1927~1931, Huai Luguang did not go to the scene of the Jincun Tomb. But he visited in 1932, but there is no more detail in his diary. Subsequently, Huo Hongwei found evidence of his real itinerary at that time in the "Examination of the Ancient Tombs of the Ancient City of Luoyang" written by Huai Luguang.
There are 18 photos in the book, which show the Luohe Plain where the Jincun Tomb is located, the loess hilly landform of Beibi Mountain, and the distribution of ancient tombs. In the foreword, Huai Luguang said that most of the illustrations in the book were taken by himself. "This shows that the purpose of Huai Luguang's trip to Luoyang is to inspect the Jincun Tomb, to prepare for the writing of the "Luoyang Ancient City Ancient Tomb Examination", and also to avoid being condemned at the moral and ethical level in the future, so he deliberately did not write about Jincun in his diary." According to the records of the time, when the tomb robbery in Luoyang was the most rampant, the tomb robbers worked day and night, "excavating the site, there were many street vendors, tents were set up all over, and antique buyers were on the way." Huo Hongwei speculated that in Jincun, Huai Luguang may have had contact with tomb robbers, in order to further understand the tomb structure and the distribution of burial goods in Jincun Tomb.
Nowadays, the cultural relics unearthed in Chuanjin Village that have survived in China are generally believed to be only three pieces of big copper tripods, copper rulers and "life melon pots". As for the owners of the tombs, which kings and vassals of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty are, it has not been confirmed because the tomb has been looted many times.
The story of the generals behind the palace coup
At the back of the central axis of the Chinese Pavilion in the British Museum, a group of Tang Sancai figurines are exhibited, which are considered by British scholars to be the treasure of the museum. In 2017, "World History in 100 Artifacts from the British Museum" was exhibited at the National Museum of China and the Shanghai Museum. Among them, a tall three-color civil figurine is exhibited.
However, for a long time, scholars at the British Museum only transliterated the name of the tomb owner as "Liu Tingxun" based on the English translation of the original epitaph rubbings attached to the cultural relics when they entered the museum in the 30s of the last century. In 2015, the compilation of the Essence of Ancient Chinese Antiquities in Overseas Collections ·United Kingdom the British Museum Volume was launched under the auspices of the National Museum of China, and Huo Hongwei was responsible for the research of some of the British Museum's cultural relics. He found that there was no epitaph of "Liu Tingxun" in the Tang Dynasty epitaph unearthed in Luoyang, but according to the clues of Liu's death in the epitaph rubbing, he found the matching Liu Tingxun epitaph information, and the original epitaph stone is now stored in the Kaifeng City Museum.
Huo Hongwei also verified that Liu Tingxun's burial place was in Shangdongli in the Tang Dynasty, near the south side of today's Longhai Railway. In the 20s of the last century, when the railway line passed through the southern foothills of the Shan Mountain, a number of ancient tombs were destroyed, and Chinese objects were unearthed in batches, and many foreign railway employees took the opportunity to buy and smuggle them out of the country.
Liu Tingxun is a figure who has been annihilated in the history books, and there is no written record. Huo Hongwei said that his experience is actually very representative, and he was a witness to several bloody palace coups in the Tang Dynasty.
During the reign of Tang Gaozong and Wu Zetian, Liu Tingxun was promoted from the lowest-ranking officer to the sixth-rank official due to the suppression of the Khitan rebellion. During the Shenlong coup, he participated in the killing of Zhang Yizhi, assisted Zhongzong to ascend the throne smoothly, and then was promoted to the fifth rank, and then transferred to the army of Princess Taiping's mansion. After Tang Xuanzong succeeded to the throne, he competed with Princess Taiping for the supreme ruling power, and the result was that Princess Taiping's henchmen were all killed. The strange thing is that Liu Tingxun was not only not reinforced, but also added to the rank of knight and was awarded the title of "Loyal General". Huo Hongwei speculated based on the euphemistic record in the epitaph that he should have informed Tang Xuanzong in advance of the news that Princess Taiping was about to rebel. "In that era of constant palace coups, Liu Tingxun, who experienced ups and downs, was able to turn all kinds of dangers into disasters and lived to die peacefully at the age of 71, which is really fortunate and impressive." Huo Hongwei said, but he certainly never imagined that more than 1,000 years after his death, the Tang Sancai figurines in the tomb would cross the ocean and become one of the treasures of the British Museum.
"The fundamental purpose of archaeology is to 'discuss history with things and see people through things', and the eight characters are very fully reflected in the historical excavations behind this group of Tang Sancai." Huo Hongwei said that these studies also further demonstrate that Chinese scholars should have an unquestionable say in the study of Chinese cultural relics in overseas collections.
Identifying the way in which cultural objects are lost is crucial
Last year, a short drama "Escape from the British Museum" made by netizens became popular all over the Internet. A "jade pot spirit" dressed in emerald green Hanfu is the protagonist, telling the story of a "national treasure" who is in exile and desperate to return to China. Subsequently, there was a wave of discussion on the Internet about the return of cultural relics.
In "Looking at Chang'an", Huo Hongwei wrote about the past: "At 12:01 noon on November 23, 2018, the moment the Air China passenger plane flying from London to Beijing landed smoothly on the runway of Capital International Airport, tears almost came out of the eyes of a passenger on board. He and his colleagues shouldered a glorious and sacred mission on this trip - to escort back to China the old bronze 'tiger ring' of the Old Summer Palace, which had been exiled overseas for more than 150 years. Everyone worked together to successfully complete the task and let the 'Tiger Ring' go home safely. This excited, excited passenger is me. ”
As an archaeologist in the field of Han and Tang studies, Huo Hongwei is often asked a question, and when will the thousands of cultural relics lost overseas be able to return home? "In order for cultural relics lost overseas to return home smoothly, it is important to identify the way in which cultural relics are lost."
In the past, some scholars have written that cultural relics that have been robbed or illegally smuggled out of the country through war are morally unjust possession, and that China, as a country that has lost cultural relics, can retain the right of recourse, but when it is truly carried out, it is necessary to produce evidence to prove that a certain piece or batch of cultural relics were exported through war or smuggling.
Huo Hongwei also objected to the view of some foreign scholars that cultural relics are "world-wide", "cultural relics are not only cultural relics, but should also rise to the level of cultural heritage of a country or nation." He said that there are two important principles in the international academic community on the protection of cultural heritage, one is authenticity and the other is integrity. From this point of view, it is the most appropriate way and the most ideal state for a group or a piece of cultural relics to be preserved in the country to which the cultural relics originally belonged. Because archaeological research has repeatedly emphasized that it is necessary to restore the historical situation, return to the archaeological site, and let these cultural relics lost overseas return to their motherland, that is, return to the historical situation. ”
In order for cultural relics to return home, "cultural archaeologists and legal scholars need to work together to give full play to their respective professional advantages". It is reassuring to note that the Chinese legal profession is also actively involved and has made progress towards the smooth return of certain cultural relics. "We should be optimistic about the future return of cultural relics, so although the name of my book is "Looking at Chang'an", which is written by Xin Qiji, "Looking at Chang'an in the northwest, pity countless mountains", but in the end I still believe, 'The green mountains can't cover it, after all, it flows eastward'."
(This article is from Yicai)