Entering the world stage
According to Shen, the application of science and technology in archaeology also helps integrate Chinese archaeology into global archaeology. Because global archaeological practices are standardized, any findings can be used as a common starting point to further scientific inquiry. This application also increases the possibility of Chinese scholars to turn international focus onto Chinese archaeology.
Jia Xiaobing, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of Archeology, told the Global Times that he could feel China’s increased global influence as we are having more joint international cooperation in archaeology and in the hosting of exhibitions.
Jia once participated in a joint archaeological project between China and Uzbekistan which started in 2012. The work was carried out at the Mingtepa ruins in the southeast of the Fergana Valley in Uzbekistan, and it has provided important materials in the study of the ancient Silk Road and cultural exchanges between the East and the West.
In 2020, Jia led a Chinese archaeology team to Egypt amid the pandemic for a joint archaeological expedition at the
Montu Temple site in Luxor, Egypt. That was China’s first archaeological mission to Egypt, and the two teams have since conducted deep academic communication in archaeology.
Huo Zhengxin, a law professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times that China has carried out more than 50 archaeological investigations, excavations, and academic research projects in more than 20 countries along the Belt and Road Initiative corridor including Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Iran.
He added that the work in the repatriation of lost Chinese cultural relics from abroad has also made a lot of breakthroughs in the past decade.
According to Huo, China has signed bilateral agreements with 23 countries on the recovery and repatriation of lost cultural relics. These countries not only include countries like Turkey and Peru whose cultural relics were lost, but also the lost cultural relic destination countries such as the US and Australia, which laid a solid foundation for China’s recovery of lost cultural relics.