On February 15, the opening ceremony of the “Exhibition of Four Great Discoveries of Chinese Ancient Documents in the Early 20th Century” was held at the National Museum of Classics. The exhibition is divided into four topics: “Yin Wu Oracle Bones”, “Juyan Han Jian”, “Dunhuang Testament” and “Ming and Qing Archives”, focusing on 249 kinds of precious cultural relics and documents such as oracle bones and Dunhuang testaments in the National Library, Han Jian in Gansu Jianmu Museum, and Ming and Qing archives in the First Historical Archive of China.
The Yin Shang oracle bones, the Juyan Han Jian, the Dunhuang testament, and the Ming and Qing Dynasty cabinet archives are the “four great discoveries” of ancient Chinese documents at the beginning of the last century. For the first time, this exhibition brings together precious cultural relics and documents that are stored in various places, and is the largest exhibition of cultural relics related to the theme of “Four Great Discoveries” to date.
Oracle bone script is the earliest mature writing system discovered in China to date. In 2017, Oracle was inscribed on the Memory of the World Register. The National Library (National Museum of Classics) has a collection of 35,651 oracle bones, accounting for about 1/4 of the total number of oracle bones in existence, and is the largest unit in the world, including 34,783 oracle bones.
Located in the fifth exhibition hall of the National Museum of Classics, the theme of “Oracle Bones of Yinxu” explores the development context of Chinese civilization through the display of oracle bones, pictures of archaeological excavation data, and highlights of related research results, highlighting the great significance of oracle bones in the history of the development of Chinese civilization and even human civilization.
Highlights include the fragment oracle bone 2174 of the turtle belly armor that recorded Shang Wang Tian hunting and hunting elk and rabbit, and the “rabbit” character pictogram on it basically shows the front and back legs and small short tail of the rabbit, which is very vivid and expressive; The largest and most word-count oracle bone in the National Library is 5405 and 43 long.5 cm, 24 cm wide, a total of 218 characters, the content is to sacrifice to Yin Xiangong and the mountain god; Oracle bone 5509 records a solar eclipse during the Shang Dynasty, one of the earliest records of a solar eclipse in the world.
The exhibition combines interactive technology, through a variety of innovative designs to restore the scene, set up “three-dimensional picture scroll” and “surname forest”, etc., to bring the audience a new experience.
Juyan Han Jian is a simple mou unearthed at the site of Juyan Beacon in the Han Dynasty, most of which are Han Dynasty Biansai Tunshu archival documents, and a small part are books, calendars and personal letters, and the content of the simplified text shows the work and life of the Han Dynasty Juyanshu border officials.
The theme of “Juyan Han Jian” is located in the sixth exhibition hall of the National Museum of Classics, the exhibition hall is designed to restore the miniature scene of the Guyan landform, the decoration uses Han Dynasty portrait bricks, portrait stones, murals and simple mu and other elements, the audience seems to be able to feel the magnificent and desolate border scenery, and can also query and understand the archaeological investigation and excavation of the Juyan area through the multimedia touch screen.
The Dunhuang testament refers to the manuscripts and a small number of printed and expanded documents from the 4th to the 11th centuries found in the Mogao Grottoes of Dunhuang, Gansu in 1900, with a total of more than 60,000 numbers, showing the social, economic, cultural, artistic, religious, medical and cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries in the Middle Ages, and is known as the “encyclopedia of China’s medieval era”. The National Library has 16,579 Dunhuang testaments in its collection, the largest in the world.
The topic of “Dunhuang Testament” is located in the seventh exhibition hall of the National Museum of Classics, and consists of two parts: “Dunhuang of the World” and “The World of Dunhuang”. The first part of the exhibition tells about the discovery and dispersion of the Dunhuang testament, and reviews the protection, collation and research of the Dunhuang testament around the world. The second part focuses on the content of the Dunhuang testament during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Sui and Tang dynasties, Tubo rule, and the period of the rebel army, and briefly introduces the performance of the Dunhuang testament in Buddhism, Taoism, Manichaeism, and the four classics, social documents, and folk beliefs involved. In addition, this exhibition specially sorted out the binding forms of the Dunhuang testament, most of the binding forms of Chinese paper ancient books can be found in the Dunhuang testament samples or prototypes, where the audience can see the different binding forms such as scroll packaging, Sanskrit clamping, warp folding, and stitching decoration.
In order to display the long scroll in all directions, the exhibition uses a large number of long cabinets to let the audience see the full picture of the exhibits as much as possible. In order to enhance interaction, the exhibition hall also set up a projection knob bookcase, combining the projection with the physical bookcase, and turning the knob can obtain a simulated flipbook experience.
The Ming and Qing Dynasty archives are a multifaceted record of the history of social development in China during the Ming and Qing dynasties. The topic of “Ming and Qing Archives” is located in the eighth exhibition hall of the National Museum of Classics, which is divided into two parts: “Tracing of Secret Files” and “Collection of Rare Files”. “Secret File Tracking” mainly introduces the important part of the Ming and Qing Dynasty archives, the cabinet and the archives. “.”Collection of Rare Archives” starts from the four topics of government decree documents, ancient public opinion maps, court life, and historical books, and selects different types of precious archives for centralized display. The exhibition also displays large-scale public opinion maps and gold lists in the form of large-scale wall projections to create vivid visual effects.
Zhang He, reporter of this newspaper