TV show lets relics do all the talking
Keep away from an indulgent lifestyle, and is the earliest known Chinese bronze artifact made using the wax casting technique Silver sachet decorated with grapes, blossoms and birds owned by Yang Yuhuan, a well-known concubine of Emperor Xuanzong of the T
The Palace Museum, Beijing
1. Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) painting
the bestknown ancient Chinese blue-and-green landscape painting
2. Qing Dynasty (16441911) vase called “mother of porcelains”
3. (stone drum), a stone carved with hundreds of characters from the Warring States Period (475-221 BC)
Hubei Museum, Wuhan
4. of Marquis Yi of Zeng, a set of 65 bronze bells dating back 2,400 years
5. Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC) slips from the Shuihudi Tomb in Yunmeng county, Hubei, which are more than 1,000 bamboo pieces used to record legal, political and historical data 6. Sword of Goujian from the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC)
Henan Museum, Zhengzhou
7. Owl-shaped bronze wine holder owned by Fu Hao, a legendary queen and female general in the Shang Dynasty (c. 16th to 11th century BC)
8. Bone flute from the Jiahu relics dating back more than 7,800 years, the earliest discovered Chinese musical instrument
9. Bronze artifact called a — a table to hold wine in sacrificial rituals — with cloud-shaped decorations from the Spring and Autumn Period, which was used to remind rulers to Shaanxi History Museum, Xi’an
10. 11. 12.
A cradle of the Western Zhou Dynasty (c.11th century771 BC), Baoji in Shaanxi province once witnessed a high point of bronze ware production, and a great number of significant relics have been excavated there.
The He zun vessel, now in the Baoji Bronze Ware Museum collection, bears an inscription of 122 characters including “zhong guo (Middle Kingdom)”, making it the earliest known artifact to feature the word “China”.
The Dake ding, housed at Shanghai Museum, survived wartime chaos thanks to the care of its previous collector, the Pan family in Suzhou, Jiangsu province. The family turned down buyers at home and abroad who offered great sums to buy the tripod, and instead donated it to the museum in 1951.
The stories of these two bronzes will be told in If National Treasures Could Talk, a documentary series on Chinese artifacts to be broadcast on China Central Television starting Jan 1.
The first season of 25 episodes will be aired daily on CCTV’s documentary channel. In total, there will be 100 episodes over four seasons.
Each episode of five minutes highlights one object, but will also introduce other artifacts with similar cultural implications for background information.
Featured objects are from the collections of more than 16 museums and cultural institutions nationwide, enthralling the audience with the brilliance of some of the best examples of Chinese civilization.
Gu Yucai, deputy director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, said the documentary allows people of varying ages and backgrounds to listen to what artifacts “say”.
He said the objects talk about not only the beauty of their craft, colors and forms, but also boast about the virtues that have been passed down through generations.
The new documentary is a collaboration between the administration and CCTV.
Gu’s authority launched the first national survey of movable cultural relics in 2012. The figures it released in April said the country has more than 108 million such objects.
Recent years have seen several documentaries that reveal the secrets of artifacts in China’s top museums, such as the Palace Museum, receiving rave reviews from the general public.
Shi Yan, chief producer of If National Treasures Could Talk, said the documentary marks an exploratory effort to make cultural relics more real to people.
The length of each episode is based on the viewing habits of young people, as they prefer short videos providing fragmented, easily understanda- ble information, he added.
Xu Huan, the documentary’s chief director, said it will take viewers on a playful journey to discover “the greatness of artifacts and that they were very common in daily life”.
One episode is about oracle bones unearthed from the Yin Ruins, the site of a capital of the Shang Dynasty (c.16th century-11th century BC) in today’s Anyang, Henan province.
It has an animation that depicts a day in the life of an ancient Chinese family, and explains how the oracle bone characters were invented, with a comparison with their current scripts.
“When people listen attentively to what these cultural relics say, they will agree that what they hear are truly the best voices of China,” Xu said.
As one can now find much information online, it has become more difficult to find novel perspectives to help people understand the importance of cultural relics.
“One doesn’t expect as much information of academic depth from a five-minute video as from a feature-length one,” said Xi Muliang, a graduate of Peking University’s School of Archaeology and Museology who runs a public WeChat account on cultural relics.
“The sound effects, the animation and other visual presentations may make the new documentary a hit,” he said, “but what I’m concerned about more is whether it, or future documentaries, can provide new content about the objects themselves, not just how the information is presented.”