![](https://www.hzyyingyu.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/test-130.jpg)
◀ Tang Yue kiln green glazed porcelain lotus leaf with a tea cup.
(Photo by Chen Qing)
![](https://www.hzyyingyu.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/test-131.jpg)
The “14th year of Shaoxing” is inscribed on the Silver Pagoda.
Since the first year of the Changqing reign of the Tang Dynasty (821 AD), Ningbo, then known as “Mingzhou”, was relocated to Sanjiangkou and built a new city. Our city has been around 1200 years now. It is an important port town for “overseas miscellaneous countries and Jia ships to deliver”, a bustling city for “banqueting beans and dancing drums at four times”, and a land of abundant resources for “river bridges without pillars and overhead crossing”
Starting from tomorrow, the “Convergence – Ningbo 1200 Year Special Exhibition” will be exhibited at the Ningbo Museum, tracing back to the origin of Ningbo city, showcasing the treasures of a thousand year history, and presenting the historical imprint of Ningbo 1200 years to the audience.
He Yufeng, the curator of the Exhibition Department of the Ningbo Museum, introduced during a media tour yesterday that this exhibition takes the area of Mingzhou City in Tang Dynasty, with Zhongshan Road running east-west and Jiefang Road running north-south as the boundary. It introduces important archaeological discoveries in Ningbo over the years, showcasing important historical fragments from 1200 years. The exhibition gathered 487 exhibits and over 200 materials and images provided by Ningbo Museum, Ningbo Cultural Heritage Management Research Institute, Tianyige Museum, and other units, including a large amount of urban archaeological records, urban building components, ceramics, and religious and cultural related exhibits. Many cultural relics were first seen to the audience. These exhibits are the results of over 40 archaeological excavations in Ningbo over the past 50 years since the start of urban archaeological work in the 1970s.
Based on the perspective of urban archaeology, this exhibition divides the city of Ningbo into five major spatial patterns. Strolling through the exhibition hall, the audience will see that the Zicheng, which was the administrative center of the city in the late Tang Dynasty, and the Luocheng built on the outskirts of the Zicheng, jointly established the spatial form of the ancient Ningbo city of “two cities standing side by side”; Passing through the city wall, the audience will often encounter familiar but somewhat unfamiliar scenery – the Tianfeng Pagoda, which is even older than the city wall in the southeast region, the Heyi Road Maritime Terminal in the northeast region, the Confucius Temple in Zhongshan Square in the northwest region, and the ruins of the Moon Lake Park in the southwest region. In the exhibition, the space stripped off the face of modern cities, revealing the appearance of thousands of years ago.
There are a large number of ceramics in the exhibits, most of which are international trade products of the Maritime Silk Road. The Yue kiln, Longquan kiln, Jingdezhen kiln, and Cizhou kiln porcelain unearthed from the Yongfengku site in the Yuan Dynasty are representative porcelain from the Jiangnan and Central Plains regions during the Song and Yuan dynasties. This not only demonstrates the development of Ningbo’s local porcelain manufacturing industry, but also proves that Ningbo, as a “gateway to the southeast and a hub for the north and south”, is a hub for overseas sales of porcelain in China. Its important position as a port city on the Maritime Silk Road and the Grand Canal in China is self-evident.
The cultural relics exhibition section excavated from the underground palace of the Tianfeng Pagoda is eye-catching. This is the “collective appearance” of the unearthed cultural relics from the Tianfeng Pagoda, and many of them are seen to the audience for the first time. The Tianfeng Pagoda was the tallest building in the ancient city of Ningbo, and a large number of Song and Yuan dynasties were discovered in its first underground palace.Precious Buddhist cultural relics. In this exhibition, there are exquisite “Shaoxing 14th Year” Ming Silver Pagoda, “Tianfeng Pagoda and Palace” Ming Silver Hall, as well as Buddha statues and Buddhist artifacts with superb craftsmanship at that time.
Due to its unique geographical and political status, Ningbo has become a gateway city for economic and cultural exchanges between East Asian countries and China. Its thriving Buddhist culture has also been transmitted to countries such as Japan and South Korea. The Baoyun Temple and Yanqing Temple mentioned in the exhibition are evidence of the exchange of Buddhist culture in Mingzhou to the outside world.