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Exhibition of “The World Opens to Hong Kong”. Photo courtesy of Ningbo Cultural Heritage Management Research Institute
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Cultural relics exhibited in “Shadow of Kiln Fire”. Photo courtesy of Ningbo Cultural Heritage Management Research Institute
At the confluence of the three rivers, the Millennium Legend City. From Jingtou Mountain in 8,000 years to Hemudu in 7,000 years, a history of human civilization has a long history in eastern Zhejiang.
In the first year of Tang Changqing (AD 821), Ningbo, then known as “Mingzhou”, moved Zhouzhi to the Gulou area in this urban area in Sanjiangkou. For more than a thousand years, Ningbo people have built a port town on this land, which is “handed over by overseas foreign countries”, forming a bustling city with “feasting beans and painting drums at all times”, and creating a traffic miracle of “the river bridge without columns and overhead”.
In order to excavate the historical vein of the city and keep the historical mark, Ningbo has been engaged in archaeological work since 1956, with frequent and wonderful highlights from field archaeology to urban archaeology. Keep the next batch of cultural relics while making the history of civilization and city building clearer.
Since the second half of last year, Ningbo Cultural Heritage Management Research Institute, in conjunction with relevant units, has successively launched a number of archaeological exhibitions, activating and presenting the achievements of urban archaeology and historical research for decades, telling the stories behind cultural relics brilliantly, making cultural relics speak, and making archaeology go to the public.
Special exhibition of urban research
Show the history of Ningbo city construction from different dimensions.
From Sept. 8, 2021 to Nov. 28, 2021, the special exhibition “Port and City of Ningbo: The World Opens” was held in Ningbo China Port Museum. The exhibition is jointly planned and held by Ningbo Cultural Heritage Management Research Institute and Ningbo China Port Museum. It takes the interaction between port and city as the curatorial concept, and intuitively shows the development law of Ningbo relying on port to build a city, using port as a city, and prospering the city because of port.
Supported by archaeological discoveries and research achievements, the exhibition pays attention to “taking the history of material evidence”. During the Warring States Period, the first port city in Ningbo-Juzhang Ancient City Site discovered the dock ruins from Han Dynasty to the Three Kingdoms period, the Persian green glazed pottery pieces unearthed from Mingzhou Zicheng Site in Tang Dynasty, the Yue kiln celadon lotus leaf belt tea holder unearthed from Dongmenkou Dock Site in Tang Dynasty, the Southern Song Dynasty glass bottle with spices unearthed from Tianfeng Tower and the underground palace, the inscription rubbings of Shuiyun Wanhufu, the relocated Haidao, and the inscriptions of “Qingyuan” in Yuan Dynasty, “Tongquan” and “Jian” unearthed from Yongfengku Site.
Archaeological relics, unearthed cultural relics, rubbings and old photos, these cultural relics have combined and interpreted the thousand-year history of the interaction between Ningbo port and city, and cleared up the heavy fog that has shrouded the development history of Ningbo port and city for a long time, especially in the early development history of Ningbo port and city.
Open in December, 2021, and lasting until March 8, 2022, “Convergence-Ningbo City 1200th Anniversary Special Exhibition” was held in Ningbo Museum, jointly launched by Ningbo Cultural Heritage Management Research Institute and Ningbo Museum. This exhibition focuses on the vision of urban archaeology, breaks through the past historical narrative practices, and takes the spatial orientation as the basic dimension to divide Ningbo into five spatial patterns. Walking through the exhibition hall, the audience seemed to walk into a “miniature version” of Ningbo City.
A total of 487 pieces (sets) of exhibits are displayed in this exhibition, covering more than 40 achievements of urban archaeology in Ningbo since 1950s. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, as a sub-city of the city’s administrative center, Luocheng, which was built on the periphery of the sub-city, Tianfeng Tower, which is older than the city wall in the southeast, Heyi Road Shipping Terminal in the northeast, Confucius Temple in Zhongshan Square in the northwest, and all kinds of ruins of Rob in Yuehu Park in the southwest … The distant and abstract history is presented to the audience through ruins, city bricks and porcelain pieces.
“Convergence-Ningbo 1200th Anniversary Special Exhibition” also exhibited the treasures of Tianfeng Tower in Ningbo in Song Dynasty for the first time, which achieved the goal of displaying from a macro perspective and satisfying the audience’s appreciation of fine cultural relics.
Exhibition of archaeological achievements
Tracing the development history of Ningbo from different aspects
Archaeological exhibition not only traces the history of the central city, but also traces and reproduces the regional history and culture. Since last year, Ningbo Cultural Heritage Management Research Institute, combining with the important archaeological discoveries in recent years, has held many exhibitions of archaeological achievements with rich types and distinctive regional characteristics in various districts (counties and cities) of Ningbo, enriching the exhibitions of museums in various districts (counties and cities).
From June 11, 2021 to August 11, 2021, the “Starlight of Civilization-Special Exhibition of Archaeological Achievements of Yingjia Site in Zhenhai, Ningbo” was jointly organized by Ningbo Cultural Heritage Management Research Institute, Ningbo Museum and zhenhai district Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television, Tourism and Sports, and held in Ningbo Bang Museum.
Lake Jiulong, south of Cuiping Mountain, along the ancient coast … For more than 6,000 years, generations of ancestors worked hard and thrived in this beautiful and rich land, fortunately leaving behind many valuable cultural sites. Since 2013, through scientific archaeological investigation and exploration, nearly 20 settlement sites have been found. Yingjia Site, located in the original Yingjia Village of Jiulonghu Town, is one of the typical representatives and was named as one of the “Important Archaeological Discoveries in Zhejiang” in 2020.
More than 1,000 pieces of precious cultural relics with different textures were unearthed at Yingjia site. Not only were the high-standard and high-grade utensils such as Yong Bell and bronze cover, which were the original porcelain of Shang and Zhou Dynasties, but also some pottery pieces were marked with “five-pointed star”. With the title of “Starlight of Civilization” as a pun, the exhibition shows the ancient civilization of Zhenhai, and at the same time helps arouse the audience’s interest in cultural relics.
From November 5, 2021 to March 31, 2022, the “Shadow of Kiln Fire-Yue Kiln Archaeological Exhibition in Tang and Song Dynasties” held at the Yue Kiln Museum in Shanglin Lake, Cixi exhibited more than 200 pieces of cultural relics unearthed from 9 Yue Kiln sites in Zhejiang province, based on more than 90 years of Yue Kiln archaeological work. Celadons unearthed from the kilns of Dilingtou, Shimanong, Hehuaxin and Silongkou in Cixi, Guotong ‘ao and Shangshui ‘ao in Dongqian Lake, in front of Shangyu kiln temple and Fujialing kiln are gathered together.
Yue Kiln Celadon is a cultural card in Zhejiang. From sporadic collection to comprehensive combing, from small-scale trial excavation to large-scale scientific excavation, the revelation of the Millennium mystery of Yue Kiln and Secret Porcelain in Tang and Song Dynasties has condensed the hard work and wisdom of several generations of Zhejiang archaeologists. On the occasion of the centenary of the birth of China Archaeology in 2021, holding the Centennial Exhibition of Yue Kiln Archaeology will also help promote the exchange and sharing of Yue Kiln archaeological achievements and enhance the public’s overall understanding of Yue Kiln industry in Tang and Song Dynasties.
The “Lost Ancient Yin City-Fenghua Baidu Archaeological Culture Exhibition”, which opened at Fenghua Museum, lasted from January 26th to July 5th, 2022, and exhibited the ancient Yin County site in Fenghua today in all directions for the first time.
Guyin County, located in Baidu, Fenghua, has been in existence for more than 800 years since it was established by Qin Chu and abolished by Sui Ping Chen. It is separated from the Gujuzhang County in Wangjiaba Village, Cicheng, Jiangbei, Guzhan County in Baozhuang, Wuxiang, Yinzhou, and Guyao County in Longquan, Shandong, the old city of Yuyao, which together laid the cornerstone of Ningbo’s urban development.
The exhibition is divided into two units: “From Legend to Historical Facts, Ancient Yinxian People” and “From Settlement to City, Ancient Yinxian City”. It focuses on the archaeological achievements of ancient Yinxian in the past 50 years and exhibits more than 200 precious cultural relics. A large number of original pictures, images and sand table models of archaeological sites are the first time to meet with the public, which is of great significance for promoting the protection of cultural heritage in Fenghua District and strengthening the cultural quality construction of Fenghua city.
From January 18th, 2022 to April, 2022, the “Hanfeng Yaocheng-Yuyao Han Dynasty History and Culture Theme Exhibition” was exhibited in Yuyao Museum, aiming at comprehensively showing the political, economic and cultural development of the Han Dynasty in Yuyao area through the collation of archaeological materials and literature research.
For Yuyao’s history, Qin and Han dynasties are a very critical node. From Qin and Han Dynasties, Yuyao ended the legendary era of “faithless history”, and gradually developed into Wangxian County, East Zhejiang Province, where people gathered together. More than 50 pieces of cultural relics in the exhibition, in addition to the fine cultural relics of the Han Dynasty collected by Yuyao Museum, also include the newly unearthed fine cultural relics in recent archaeological excavation projects in Yuyao, such as the site of the Han and Six Dynasties in Garden Village of Lizhou Street, and the tombs of Yu family members in Sunwu Period of Xuehu, which provide a new window for the public to know the profound historical and cultural details of Yuyao, a thousand-year-old city.
Reporter Gu Jiayi