FONG KONG PHOOEY

China’s museum of 40 000 fakes is forced to close its doors, writes Tom Phillips

ACHINESE museum has had to close after claims that its 40 000strong collection of supposedly ancient relics was almost entirely composed of fakes.

The Jibaozhai Museum, located in Jizhou, a city in the northern province of Hebei, opened in 2010 with 12 exhibition halls packed with apparently unique cultural gems.

But the extensive collection appears ultimately to have been flawed.

Last month, the museum’s ticket offices were shut amid claims that many of the exhibits were knock-offs that had been bought for between 100 yuan (R160) and 2 000 yuan (R3 200).

The humiliation began earlier when Ma Boyong, a Chinese writer, noticed a series of dis- crepancies during a visit and posted his findings online.

Among the most striking errors were artefacts engraved with writing purportedly showing that they dated back more than 4 000 years to the times of China’s Yellow Emperor.

However, according to the Shanghai Daily, the simplified Chinese characters used only came into widespread use in the 20th century.

The collection also contained a “Tang Dynasty” five-colour porcelain vase, despite the fact that this technique was invented hundreds of years later, during the Ming Dynasty.

Museum staff tried to play down the scandal.

Wei Yingjun, the museum’s chief consultant, conceded that it did not have the proper provincial authorisations to operate but said he was “quite positive” that at least 80 of its 40 000 objects had been confirmed as authentic.

“I’m positive that we do have authentic items in the museum. There might be fake items too but we would need [to carry out] identification and verification [to confirm that],” he said.

Wei said objects of “dubious” origin had been “marked very clearly” so as not to mislead visitors.

He vowed to sue Ma, the whistleblowing writer, for blackening the museum’s name.

“He [acted] like the head of a rebel group during the Cultural Revolution — leading a bunch of Red Guards and making chaos,” Wei said.

Shao Baoming, the deputy curator, said “at least half of the exhibits” were authentic and the owner, Wang Zonquan, said “even the gods cannot tell whether the exhibits are fake or not”.

China’s vibrant online community begged to differ, reacting with disgust and ridicule.

One micro-blogger urged local authorities to reopen and rebrand the museum as “China’s biggest fake item museum”.

—© The Daily Telegraph