Xinhua, 2005-11-25
Restored Chariots Displayed, 1st Time in China

Photo taken on Nov. 23 shows the restored chariots from 8 century B.C. displayed at the Taiyuan Museum in Taiyuan, capital of north China's Shanxi Province.

Photo taken on Nov. 23 shows the restored chariots displayed at the Taiyuan Museum in Taiyuan, capital of north China's Shanxi Province. According to experts, the tomb of Zhao Jianzi, a senior official of the Jin State in ancient China's Spring and Autumn Period (770―476 BC), was unearthed on the outskirts of Taiyuan in 1988. Sixteen chariots and 46 corpses of war horses were discovered in the tomb. To protect the historic relics, the chariots were cut and kept in boxes for more than 13 years afterwards. Restoration of the relics began in June 2002 was finished in three and a half years. This is the first time in China that the relics in pit of chariots and horses were restored in other place. (Xinhua)

Workers arrange remains of horses Nov. 20.

A worker pieces together an ancient chariot April 29.

Restored chariots (Xinhua)

http://en.chinabroadcast.cn/2242/2005-11-25/159@284002.htm

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November 24, 2005
Chinese archaeologists find 4,500-year-old fortune-telling instruments
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A Chinese archaeologist said Wednesday that a 4,500-year-old jade tortoise and an oblong jade article discovered in east China's Anhui Province were China's earliest fortune-telling instruments found so far.

The two jade objects were discovered in an ancient tomb in Lingjiatan Village, Hanshan County, Anhui Province.

Gu Fang, an expert with the jadeware research committee under the China Society of Cultural Relics, told Xinhua that the jade tortoise is made up of a back shell and a belly shell. Several holes can be found on the jade tortoise.

The oblong jade article, 11 cm long and 8.2 cm wide, was found between the back shell and the belly shell when the objects were excavated from the tomb. A pattern of some broken lines was carved on the oblong jade article.

"They were obviously not objects used in daily life, nor adornment, but instruments used in religious activities," said Gu.

He said the holes between the back and belly shells of the jade tortoise show that something might be put inside. And there should have been strings threading through the holes.

"It reminds us the action of dicing. Only when the strings were unfastened could the situation of the objects inside the jade tortoise be seen," Gu said.

Archaeologists inferred that the jade tortoise is an ancient instrument used to practise divination ahead of important activities.

During the Shang Dynasty, some 1,000 years later than the time of the Lingjiatan tomb, it was popular to use real tortoise shells to practise divination to foretell good or bad luck.

The pattern on the oblong jade article has also drawn the attention of archaeologists. Many experts said the pattern might be the origin of the "bagua" or Eight Trigrams, the eight combinations of three whole or broken lines which were used by ancient Chinese people in their divination.

Source: Xinhua

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200511/24/eng20051124_223545.html

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Project expected to decode national civilization origin
www.chinaview.cn 2005-11-25 19:19:16

ZHENGZHOU, Nov. 25 (Xinhuanet) -- An archeological project is expected to outline the chronology in the prehistoric millennium from 4,500 years ago to 3,500 years ago to decode the origin of Chinese civilization.

The government-backed project, called "Pre-research on the Origin of the Chinese Civilization", was launched in June, 2004, with an aim to work out the chronology of the Yao, Shun, Yu periods and the Xia Dynasty, said Wang Wei, deputy director of the Archaeological Institute under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

Yao, Shun and Yu are three leaders who have been much praised in historical tradition. In their period disastrous floods occurred and they called on all the tribes to fight against the disasters.

In the next five years, archeologists will study the Yangshao Culture, represented by painted pottery, in Henan Province and the civilization in the late Western Zhou Dynasty (1,100 BC - 771 BC) along the Yangtze and Yellow rivers, Wang said.

The Chinese nation is one of the four ancient nations with the longest civilizations across the world. Though boasting 5,000 years of civilization, the widely-acknowledged beginning of the civilization with historical records could be dated back to the Shang Dynasty (1,600 BC - 1,100 BC) thanks to the discovery of oracle bones.

With the inscriptions on the oracle bones, the earliest characters in China, archaeologists outlined what the society was like in the Shang Dynasty.

But there are still 1,000 years unaccounted for in China's 5,000-year civilization, making it essential for the archeologiststo find out what the pre-Shang society was like.

For the project, archeologists designated six major relics sites, including five in relics-rich Henan Province and the other in neighboring Shanxi Province.

The five in Henan included the Neolithic Xipo Site in Lingbao County, Wangchenggang Site in Dengfeng, Xinzhai Site in Xinmi County, Erlitou Site in Yanshi County and Dashigu Site in Zhengzhou. The other was the Taosi Site in Xiangfen, a city in Shanxi.

The six sites were all large-scale towns in prehistoric China, and provided crucial materials for the study of social structures and the emergence of the early states in the mysterious 1,000 years before the Shang Dynasty, Wang said.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-11/25/content_3835346.htm

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China saves corpus of Buddhist scriptures
www.chinaview.cn 2005-11-22 16:04:37

BEIJING, Nov. 22 (Xinhuanet) -- China Cultural Palace of Nationalities Tuesday launched a project to dry and refrigerate the soaked volumes of a 270-year-old, gigantic edition of the Buddhist canon, or Dazangjing in Chinese, according to the Beijing News.

The palace is to make a 150-cubic-meter refrigeratory to store nearly 20,000 volumes which were damaged by water in an accident on November 15.

Nearly 3,900 volumes of newspapers and periodicals in the languages of China's ethnic minorities, the most seriously destroyed in the accident, have been stored in a 15-cubic-meter refrigeratory after repairs.

So far the palace's heat and humidity preservation system has been recovered. The whole project will be completed in one or two years, said a palace official.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-11/22/content_3817955.htm

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Archaeologists rescuing relics for Three Gorges Dam

www.chinaview.cn 2005-11-17 19:02:44

ZHENGZHOU, Nov. 17 (Xinhuanet) -- Following the unprecedented excavation of cultural relics for the Three Gorges Dam project, Chinese archaeologists are once again running against the clock to dig and relocate numerous of treasures facing inundation as the massive south-to-north water diversion project breaks ground.

Representatives from 51 qualified archeological agencies across the country vowed Thursday to win a special campaign to rescue such a large number of tombs, temples and other cultural sites for China's largest ever water project.

"We should assume responsibility towards our history and show our determination for cultural relics protection," Shan Jixiang, director of State Bureau of Cultural Relics (SBCR), said at a mobilization conference held Thursday in Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province.

"We need to assemble as many archeological talents as possible," Shan said.

As the project is expected to begin transferring water from its water-rich south to the arid north in 2007 and 2010 through two different routes in central and east China, many cultural sites, including historic sites of Xia and Zhou Dynasties dating back to more than 4,000 years ago, an ancient section of Great Wall, ancient noble tombs and a canal, have to make way for the project.

Officials and archaeologists from ministerial departments and seven provinces and municipalities where the project run through have agreed at the conference to join their hands to salvage such cultural sites at peril.

"It is an feasible way to recruit all archeological forces nationwide to properly handle cultural relics protection for massive engineering projects," said Gu Yucai, a cultural relics protection official from the SBCR. "This has been proven by our experience during the Three Gorges project."

A joint team consisting of four ministerial agencies has completed an archeological survey along the project areas to locate 788 cultural sites that need to be protected or excavated.

The Central Government has initially invested 50 million yuan (6.25 million US dollars) in 45 major cultural sites along the project areas and more funds are expected, Yin Hongwei, an official from the Water Resources Ministry.

To ensure the safety of cultural relics along the project areas, the SBCR has ordered all archeological institutes across the country to assist the construction of the project without hesitation.

However, archaeologists fear that there isn't too much time left for cultural relics protection with the project beginning early this year in central and east China.

"We will do our best to protect cultural relics for the south-to-north water diversion project," Du Jinpeng, an archaeologist from the Archeological Research Institute under the Chinese Academy of Social Science.

"All other archeological activities except the Yin Ruins research will have to be suspended because of such rescue mission," he said, "about half of our institute's personnel will be dispatched."

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-11/17/content_3795496.htm

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Cracked hot water pipe drenches priceless books
www.chinaview.cn 2005-11-17 09:00:45

BEIJING, Nov. 17 -- A cracked heating pipe which flooded archives at the Beijing Culture Palace of Nationalities on Tuesday caused "uncountable losses," the palace's director said.

Describing the scene as one of "devastation," Qi Baohe said the flood had soaked more than 200,000 traditional thread-bound books.

A 300-year-old woodcut Dazangjing, a precious Buddhist scripture and one of only three in the country, is among the ruined texts.

Other artefacts damaged by the water include Tibetan carpets and blankets gifted to the central government in the 1950s.

"The staff were busy with repair work today, but it's still hard to estimate the losses considering their tremendous value," an official with the palace told China Daily yesterday.

She refused to explain whether and how losses would be compensated.

Staff at the palace used hairdryers to try and salvage waterlogged books, reports said.

The accident happened at 10 am on Tuesday when a hot water pipe broke, flooding the library and museum underneath the palace's theatre, according to Qi.

Damage to electrical and stage equipment has forced all performances scheduled over the next 20 days to be cancelled, sources with the palace said.

At 4 pm on Tuesday, water in the library storeroom was still more than 10 centimetres deep, the source said.

By 8 pm, the leak had been stopped and the heating system repaired, according to sources with the Beijing District Heating Group.

Together with the Great Hall of the People, the national culture palace was one of the top 10 famous buildings constructed after the founding of New China in 1949.

The palace is in the Xidan downtown area of Beijing's Xicheng District and includes an exhibition hall, a library and an opera theatre.

(Source: China Daily)

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-11/17/content_3792186.htm

 

 

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Matthias Arnold
(Art-Eastasia list)

http://www.chinaresource.org
http://www.fluktor.de

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