Abstract
While countless monuments and artworks were destroyed all over China at the outset of the Cultural Revolution, archaeological excavation continued to be undertaken and important finds made between the years 1966 and 1970. Archaeology re-entered the public stage in July 1971 when the Palace Museum in Beijing re-opened with an exhibition of Cultural Relics Excavated during the Cultural Revolution. The show was followed in 1972 by two publications with the same title: a high-price folio with reproductions of excavated objects in superior print quality, and a booklet introducing important excavations to a more general public. The same year also saw a re-launch of the country’s most important archaeological journals. The first issues were devoted mainly to the same finds as those featured in the Cultural Relics exhibition and publications. The texts have strong similarities that indicate tight political control. This article examines how the treasures excavated in the Western Han dynasty tombs at Mancheng, Hebei Province, are treated in the publications and analyses how this group of texts was orchestrated to lend ideological legitimacy to the exhibition and publications, thereby securing the recovery of archaeological work. They also laid the ideological foundations for an international travelling exhibition that successfully served as part of China’s foreign policy strategy.
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Introduction
The Chinese Cultural Revolution, lasting from 1966 to 1976, has become a synonym for the destruction of cultural heritage. This is because during its first months thousands of ancient monuments, including Buddhist and Daoist temples, were attacked, and artworks and books in private households were confiscated and often burnt (Fig. 1). From mid-August to September 1966 at least 4,922 of Beijing’s 6,843 officially classified historical sites were damaged or destroyed (Ho 2006, 64–65) in the Red Guard’s attempt to “destroy the Four Olds”: old thought, old culture, old customs, and old habits.
Only the most important monuments in the country, like the Forbidden City in Beijing or the Potala Palace in Lhasa, were spared from the Red Guard attacks, presumably through the intervention of Prime Minister Zhou Enlai. In order to protect them these building complexes were closed to the public and turned into army quarters.Footnote 1 Moreover, Dahpon Ho has demonstrated that other sites and treasures were saved by local residents through resistance, concealment, or through persuasion and negotiation (Ho 2006). Red Guards, radical student groups from universities and high schools around the country, carried out the “Destroy the Four Olds” campaign because they believed in a mission to destroy China’s old culture in order to make way for a new, revolutionary society.Footnote 2 While the campaign gradually came to a halt in early 1967 and the Red Guards were disbanded in 1969, the radical Maoist ideology that had legitimized their actions remained fundamentally unquestioned until Mao Zedong’s death in 1976 and the subsequent fall from power of the radicals around Jiang Qing. Cultural activity was, with few exceptions, restricted to the praise of socialism and to representations of chubby, red-faced, and happily smiling yet determined workers, peasants, and soldiers. Sites of religious worship were closed or turned into factories or granaries, while cultural activity associated with “feudalism,” “capitalism,” or “bourgeois” culture could only be pursued in a clandestine way.
The situation was somewhat different in the field of archaeology and for objects retrieved from excavations. While the field did not remain unaffected by the sweeping violence of the early Cultural Revolution, archaeological excavations were still undertaken and this work returned to public visibility at a fairly early date in 1971. The reasons for the privileged role of archaeology in the cultural and intellectual climate of the early 1970s can be traced, at least partly, to the mission that it was assigned: the interpretation of Chinese civilization. This is a central issue in which the present paper deviates from this volume’s focus on “civilizing missions” or “civilizing visions.” The premise of Chinese archaeology during the Maoist era from 1949 to 1979 is that the greatness of Chinese civilization was never contested, and the nationalist and anti-imperialist cause that served as a major legitimization for the founding of the People’s Republic prompted a glorification of China’s past. Furthermore, as Lothar von Falkenhausen has observed, “the perceived continuity of the Chinese historical experience […] directly links the archaeological data to the present in a relation of ethnic and national identity” (von Falkenhausen 1993, 840). Modern Chinese archaeology has inherited a long tradition of Chinese historiography, antiquarianism, and epigraphy, which has led to a preoccupation with finds that can be related to historical records, and their interpretation to match the written sources. On the other hand, the theoretical model that was to be strictly followed was based on the stages of evolution according to Friedrich Engels’ 1884 book Der Ursprung der Familie. It proposes a progressive development from primitive society through slave society, feudal society, and capitalist society, reaching its apogee in socialist society. Archaeological proof of this “historical law” thus served to legitimate the rule of the Communist Party (von Falkenhausen 1993, 846–847; Tong 1995, 180–181). During the years of the Cultural Revolution the writings of Mao Zedong formed the ideological framework according to which finds were interpreted, and these were applied even more strictly when archaeological publications re-entered the public sphere in 1972.
Another circumstance leading to the relative safety of archaeological work during the Cultural Revolution might have been personal relations. The Cultural Revolution was also an internal power struggle, and the “Destroy the Four Olds” campaign in 1966 as well as the attempts by Zhou Enlai to return to a more moderate cultural politics in the early 1970s through exhibitions, the promotion of archaeological publications, and ordering paintings from traditionalist painters, cannot be separated from factional struggles; in fact, they should be regarded as powerful symbolic acts. Personal commitment by members of a certain faction to a specific field such as archaeology almost certainly played a role. In the case under consideration here, it was the relationship between Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, the president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guo Moruo—himself a key figure in modern Chinese historiography and palaeography—and director of the Institute of Archaeology, Xia NaiFootnote 3 that enabled the resumption of scholarly work. Still, the Maoist ideology of those years required a strict adherence to the radical rhetoric of the Cultural Revolution and an explicit commitment to Mao-Zedong-Thought.
Finally, archaeology was to play an important role in the diplomatic goals of the Chinese government. From an early stage, an international travelling exhibition was part of the plans to establish diplomatic ties with the United States and European countries (Xia 1978, 222).
The reappearance of archaeology in the public sphere was carefully planned and strictly controlled. This paper will analyse how this process was visually and ideologically orchestrated in order to reconcile radical rhetoric and pragmatic ends.
Cultural Relics Excavated during the Great Cultural Revolution: An Exhibition and Two Books
By 1971 the fighting of the early years of the Cultural Revolution had been suppressed, and the political situation had somewhat stabilized. On July 1 the Palace Museum reopened to the public with an exhibition of Cultural Relics Excavated during the Great Cultural Revolution. The title served a double purpose: It lent a revolutionary legitimization to the event, while at the same time shedding new light in the previous years. The iconoclasm of the Red Guards was superseded by the bringing to light of superb artworks by experts who were actively supported by workers, peasants, and soldiers.
Similar exhibits were set up in the provincial capitals to display finds excavated during the Cultural Revolution in the respective provinces (Leys 1977, 83–84 and 134).
Three weeks later on July 22, it was decided that the country’s most important archaeological journals, Wenwu (Cultural Relics), Kaogu (Archaeology), and Kaogu Xuebao (Acta Archaeologica Sinica) would be re-launched (Wenwu 1979, 409). The three journals, which like other scholarly publications had ceased to appear after May 1966 due to the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution, resumed publication in January 1972.Footnote 4 Articles written in 1978 in commemoration of Guo Moruo indicate that he was responsible for applying for the resumed publication of the periodicals “with the support of the responsible comrades of the cultural relics and archaeological institutions,” as well as for an exhibition to be sent abroad. Zhou Enlai, in turn, is reported to have personally given his permission for these enterprises (Wenwu 1978, 5; Xia 1978, 222).
In February 1972, one month after the reappearance of the journals, a large bibliophile book appeared bearing the same title as the exhibition at the Palace Museum: Cultural Relics Excavated during the Great Cultural Revolution, Volume One (other volumes never followed). Although no mention of the exhibition is made in the book, it obviously complemented the exhibit by displaying the excavated artefacts. It included high-quality plates in black and white and several colour plates as well as short entries on each object and was produced with a cloth binding and embossed slipcase (Figs. 2 and 3); its high price of 30 Yuan—about a month’s income—indicates that it was not directed at the broad masses of workers, soldiers, and peasants (Leys 1977, 104).
For this audience another book with the same title (without a volume number), but of smaller size and at the more affordable price of 0.37 Yuan was published in September 1972. It featured short articles that introduced the main finds, sketched their historical importance, and gave an ideological interpretation of them. Moreover, according to an editorial note, most of the articles had previously been published in the newspaper Guangming Ribao. The two books clearly served different political functions—a powerful representation of culture in the folio and explanations of the finds for a larger audience in the booklet.
In the folio the objects were grouped according to the province where they had been excavated. The sequence of the provinces seems partly to derive from the importance and the antiquity of the finds. It opens with objects from the most spectacular of the excavations in the period, the Western Han dynasty tombs of Liu Sheng, Prince of Zhongshan, and his consort Dou Wan who died in the late second century BCE. This find is represented by forty-two objects, making up the second-largest group in the catalogue and all of the Hebei Province section. The following Hunan and Shaanxi Provinces are represented by mostly smaller groups of more diverse finds from different periods; a hoard find from Xi’an, that in 1970 had brought to light mainly Tang dynasty silver and gilt metalware, received the most attention with the reproduction of forty-eight objects. The ranking towards the end of the book of excavations in Xinjiang and Shanxi, revealing seventh- and eighth-century textiles and manuscripts from Turfan and the painted panel from the Northern Wei dynasty tomb of Sima Jinlong (d. c. 474–484) respectively, may be related to their position on the spatial and dynastic periphery of Han Chinese cultural history.
The excavations featured in the booklet differ in some cases from those in the folio, and the sequence has also been altered. The first article is again devoted to the Han tombs of Mancheng, but the second is concerned with an excavation that could not have been included in the exhibition or in the prestigious illustrated book. Yet this find can be regarded as especially symptomatic of the fallacies of cultural heritage practice during the Cultural Revolution. In the process of demolishing Xizhimen, one of the city gates of Beijing dating back to 1436, the remains of Heyimen, one of the gates of Dadu, the capital of the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368) came to light (Cultural Relics 1972b, 17–19). Brought about by the destruction of living cultural heritage—the Beijing city wall—the find was celebrated as an achievement of Cultural Revolution archaeology conducted with the help of revolutionary workers and “in the process of construction” (Cultural Relics 1972b, 12).
The two Cultural Relics books, along with the first issues of the archaeological journals, are closely interrelated and based on a narrow pool of text. The international audience was also presented with parts of this text body when Chinese Literature and China Pictorial introduced the archaeological achievements of the Cultural Revolution as early as November 1971 in partly identical texts.Footnote 5 Both Cultural Relics books and the January 1972 issue of Wenwu open with a Xinhua News Agency editorial that first appeared in the People’s Daily dated to July 24, 1971, two days after the decision to re-launch the archaeological journals. This text serves as both an ideological legitimation and a guideline for archaeological excavation and research. The political caution that marked the launch is illuminated by the fact that Zhou Enlai personally read the editorial and commented on the text before its publication (Guojia Wenwu Shiye Guanliju 1977, 5). The first lines of the editorial read as follows:
Under the guidance of the revolutionary line of Chairman Mao, with the support and cooperation of the broad masses of workers, peasants and soldiers, the cultural relics and archaeology workers of our nation have undertaken a wide range of cultural relic preservation and excavation works during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. They unearthed and restored many sites of cultural heritage and ancient tombs, and discovered a large number of precious historical relics. These are of important scientific value for the research and understanding of our nation’s historical politics, economics, culture, military affairs and the friendly contact between China and foreign nations.
The Great Leader Chairman Mao has pointed out: Another of our tasks is to study our historical heritage and use the Marxist method to sum it up critically. Our national history goes back several thousand years and has its own characteristics and innumerable treasures [printed bold in the original source].Footnote 6
The main issues in Chinese archaeology during the Cultural Revolution era are touched upon in this short paragraph. First, archaeology is acclaimed as one of the achievements of the Cultural Revolution. The premises for this success are: the inclusion of workers, peasants, and soldiers in the excavation activities; the use of archaeology as part of a decidedly national historiography that relates directly to the present situation (as seen in the phrase “the friendly contact between China and foreign nations”); and finally, the interpretation of the retrieved data according to “the Marxist method.”
The editorial then enumerates the relevant finds, starting again with the Western Han tombs of Liu Sheng, Prince of Zhongshan, and his consort Dou Wan in Mancheng, Hebei Province. In the following pages, my discussion will focus on the objects that were retrieved from these two tombs to analyse how ancient artefacts, their historical and their artistic status were displayed and discussed in 1972. As mentioned above, these objects were the first to be illustrated in the Cultural Relics folio (Cultural Relics 1972a, 1–39), and the first discussed in the booklet (Cultural Relics 1972b, 5–11). The text in the latter is based on an article on the excavation that was printed in the January 1972 issue of Kaogu—the very first article after the editorial in the first post-Cultural Revolution number (Zhongguo Kexueyuan 1972a).Footnote 7
The Mancheng Tombs
The tomb of Liu Sheng was discovered on Mt. Lingshan in Mancheng County, Hebei Province, in 1968 by a patrolling People’s Liberation Army officer. It was excavated in a very short space of time, between June 27 and August 2, 1968, by joint teams from the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Cultural Relics Work Group of Hebei Province. The excavation proceeded “with the support and active cooperation of soldiers and the revolutionary masses” and “under the close attention of the Central Committee” (Zhongguo Kexueyuan 1972a, 8). Guo Moruo personally visited the excavation siteFootnote 8 (Fig. 4). A few days later, between August 13 and September 19, Dou Wan’s tomb was excavated.
The importance of the tombs of Liu Sheng and Dou Wan lies in the fact that they are the only Han dynasty imperial tombs excavated thus far that have not been looted. They rendered over 2,800 burial objects, some of which represent superb examples of Han dynasty art. Liu Sheng’s tomb measures 51.7 m in length and 37.5 m in width and reaches a height of 6.8 m; his wife’s tomb is even larger, though equipped slightly less lavishly. In their enormous size they constitute “underground palaces” that provided food, drink, horses and carriages, servant figurines, a banquet hall, an inner chamber and even a bathroom for the deceasedFootnote 9 (Fig. 5).
Furthermore, this was the first time that complete jade shrouds had been unearthed (Figs. 6 and 10). As is known from historical records, to be buried in a jade shroud was the privilege of the Han imperial family and sometimes of lesser aristocrats. These objects probably functioned to protect the body from decay and possibly to ensure the immortality of the deceased. Liu Sheng’s shroud was made of 4,298 thin jade plaques that were closely fitted around his body, drilled in the corners, and sewn together with gold-wire (Zhongguo Kexueyuan 1972a, 15; Zhongguo Shehui Kexueyuan and Hebei Sheng Wenwu Guanlichu 1980, 35–36).Footnote 10
Archaeology and Ideology in a Preliminary Excavation Report from 1972
The aforementioned article in the January 1972 issue of Kaogu is a preliminary excavation report that was informed by the ideological guidelines of the Cultural Revolution. After acknowledging the revolutionary masses involved in the excavation, it rather matter-of-factly describes the topography and the layout of the tombs, the arrangement of the chambers, and the most important objects retrieved, which were listed according to material: bronzes, iron, silver and gold, jade, ceramics, lacquer, and textiles. The jade shrouds and the inscriptions on coins and seals are each dealt with in extra chapters.
The authors were clearly impressed by the size of the tombs as well as by the technical quality and the sheer beauty of many of the objects that they described. Yet the aesthetic affect is closely related to and maybe even a necessary element of an ideological critique regarding the circumstances of their production. It is used in two ways towards the critical summary of the historical heritage that the Mao Zedong quotation required in the editorial.
Technical quality and beauty are described as a product of the labouring masses, constituting part of China’s national cultural heritage. The interpretative light that was thus shed on the objects was clearly a positive one, but it simultaneously served as an indicator of the cruel suppression and exploitation of the masses through the feudal lords. Sentences that remind the reader of the tomb owners’ cruelty and their profligate lifestyles and spending of the nation’s wealth even after death are added after every passage in the article. The English version published in Chinese Literature is representative of this formulaic phrasing:
The workmanship [of the jade shrouds] is extremely fine, and demonstrates the high skill and artistry of the craftsmen. In the estimation of present-day craftsmen, an expert jadesmith would need at least ten years to complete one such cover. They highlight the lavish self-indulgence of the feudal rulers in contrast to the grinding poverty of the common people who were so gifted. (Hsiao 1971, 84)
These comments are inserted in a rather mechanical way, indicating an abrupt change in writing style from excavation report to ideological critique. This critique was supported by the fact that even in his own time, Liu Sheng was reputed to be immoral. The archaeologists of the 1970s often characterized him with a quotation from his contemporary, the historian Sima Qian: “Liu Sheng loved to drink and was very fond of women” (Watson 1961, 456).Footnote 11
Excavation and the Revolutionary Line of Chairman Mao
In the archaeological texts of the early 1970s, the importance of Han dynasty artisans in the creation of Chinese material culture is emphasized alongside a repeated insistence on the cruelty of class struggle, while the involvement of modern workers, soldiers, and peasants in archaeological fieldwork was a major characteristic of the Cultural Revolution. Their participation fulfilled one major aim of Maoist politics, namely the popularization of science and culture among the revolutionary masses.Footnote 12 At the same time, their presence served to ensure the correct class viewpoint in the interpretation and explanation of the finds. This aspect is documented in a photograph of the excavation that is included in the Cultural Relics booklet. It shows the participants’ reconstruction of the arrangements of the burial objects inside the tomb’s main chamber (Fig. 7). Several men in the photo are wearing uniform and are likely to be soldiers.Footnote 13 The active participation of members of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is also the subject of an article that was published in the January 1972 issue of Wenwu—it was published at the same time as the preliminary excavation report in Kaogu and again as the very first article after the editorial. It was authored by the Party Branch of the sixth company of PLA unit 4749 (Lu 2005, 17) and bears the following title: “We participated in the excavation of the ancient tombs of the Western Han” (Jiefangjun 1972).
The tone of this article is quite enthusiastic, and it repudiates the idea spread by “some small gang of international imperialists and their lackeys” that Chinese cultural heritage had been destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Rather, the PLA unit bears witness to the contrary, since they had themselves taken an active part in the excavation and preservation of the Mancheng tombs. Moreover, archaeological work is explicitly linked to the “revolutionary line of Chairman Mao.” This is most clearly revealed in an anecdote about a young soldier named Li Mengyu who volunteered for the excavation after his shifts and who is reported to have declared laughingly with a mud-stained face: “To preserve the cultural relics is the duty of the revolutionary fighter. In order to defend the revolutionary line of Chairman Mao even a relic as small as a needle has to be recovered from the mud” (Jiefangjun 1972, 4). The article describes the excavation as a chance encounter between modern soldiers and “poor and lower-middle peasants” (pinxiazhongnong) with the products of their counterparts of the Han dynasty; however, a critique of the cruel feudal rulers is not omitted. The Prince and Princess of Zhongshan were also viewed in relation to their more recent counterparts, and the PLA unit convened a “Remember the bitterness, think of the sweetness” meeting. “Remember the bitterness” refers to the reporting of personal suffering in the “old society”—that is, in pre-1949 China—thereby highlighting the “sweetness” of life under communist rule (Wu 2014). Historical evidence retrieved from excavations was thus slotted into the rhetoric and the reality of the denouncement of modern-day class enemies. The often-cited slogan “Make the past serve the present” which served as a somewhat general heading for archaeological writing in 1972 thus achieved acute immediacy.
Visiting the Exhibition of Cultural Relics Excavated During the Cultural Revolution
The same process of instrumentalizing history to fit into present-day ideological patterns and factional struggle is prominent in another group of articles: the reports made by visitors to the Cultural Relics exhibition in the Palace Museum. Two short texts were printed in the January 1972 issue of Kaogu, directly after the preliminary excavation report (Han 1972; Ma 1972), and a third followed in the June 1972 issue of Wenwu (Gong 1972). The authors of the articles in Kaogu were young “worker, peasant, soldier” students in the History Department of Beijing University, while the text in Wenwu was written by a member of a group of young workers from an agricultural commune north of Beijing. Workers, peasants, and soldiers were equally important as the readers and as the audience of the events, and they were, at the same time, supposed to receive a historical education and to provide political critique. The correct audience for the show was carefully chosen, since entrance to the exhibition in the Palace Museum and similar events in the provinces was restricted to selected groups and individuals (Leys 1977, 83–84 and 134).
Contrary to the soldiers’ article, which was full of pride in their participation in the discovery and the excavation of the Mancheng tombs, the exhibition reports contain a flaming ideological critique. Careful descriptions of the exhibited objects and detailed knowledge of historical data are juxtaposed with accounts of the cruel exploitation suffered by the student authors’ closest relatives in pre-revolutionary China. The young worker Gong Aiwen admits that she had not understood much about the bitterness of the “old society” even when listening to elder people’s stories, but had experienced the fierce suppression of the working people by the ruling class through the exhibition. Despite these personalized accounts, the language employed in the articles is highly stereotypical, with wording and phrasing that is, in many points, identical with the other exhibition reports, and also with the group of texts around the Xinhua editorial and the preliminary excavation report. Although the youth of the authors’ of the exhibition reports is conveyed through the colloquial phrases that are interspersed in the text to enhance its authenticity, their reports also reflect the high degree of political control that was exerted in re-launching the archaeological journals. Written under close supervision, if not with the direct intervention of the journals’ editorial boards, these contributions by the working masses have a distinctive political function. They embody the ideological legitimization of archaeology in the Cultural Revolution as postulated by the Xinhua editorial cited above. At the same time they also serve as an ideological safeguard to protect the enterprise of re-launching scholarly publications.
In the exhibition reports the treasures from Mancheng again receive the highest degree of attention and, according to the young worker Gong Aiwen, were the first exhibits that visitors encountered upon entering the exhibition hall (Gong 1972, 61).
The Changxin Palace Lamp as an Icon of Cultural Revolution Archaeology
Besides the jade shrouds, the object that was given the most attention in the texts was a lamp in the form of a female servant discovered in the tomb of Dou Wan (Fig. 8). Apart from being a beautifully crafted bronze sculpture, it is also a technically refined lamp, the shade of which can be adjusted to alter the brightness and the direction of its light. It bears various short inscriptions relating to the palaces it had belonged to prior to its burial with the princess. It is known as “Changxin Palace lamp” after one of the inscriptions referring to the palace of Empress Dowager Dou. The empress was Liu Sheng’s grandmother and, as evidenced from the surname, a relative of Dou Wan. The lamp as a gift from the empress to the princess, or according to another suggestion, through the intermediary of the Yangxin Princess, can therefore be discussed, together with the other symbols of power that Dou Wan self-confidently displayed in her tomb, as an expression of female agency at the Han courts.Footnote 14
The suffering of the labouring masses, the agency of powerful women at court, as well as the aesthetic appreciation of a work of art can all be identified in the figure of the young female servant depicted in the Changxin Palace Lamp; and for a short time it even became an icon of Maoist archaeology. The lamp was afforded page-size reproductions in every text from the 1972 series of publications. In an exhibition photograph printed with Gong Aiwen’s report, it is arranged as if in a friendly conversation with modern girl workers, thus reinforcing on a visual level the identification of historical data with modern politics (Fig. 9). But the main medium that modelled the girl servant into an icon was the visually and materially most attractive publication in the series: the expensive folio illustrating the Cultural Relics Excavated during the Great Cultural Revolution. The lamp is awarded the most prominent place in the book at the beginning of the sequence of colour plates, and it is granted the largest amount of descriptive text as well as reproductions of rubbings of its inscriptions.
The jade shrouds of the feudal lords, on the other hand, are illustrated partly in black-and-white (Fig. 10), are represented as the last of the pieces excavated in Mancheng, and are granted a conspicuously small amount of text. This is obviously a reflection of the revolutionary re-ranking of the classes: Servant and lord have exchanged places, if only within the confines of a book. In turn, this book with its lavish printing quality, cloth binding, embossed slipcase, and high price was not directed at the audience of the broad masses of workers, soldiers, and peasants. On the contrary, it was symptomatic of the new role that the illustrated objects were to play only slightly later. Only six weeks after the opening of the exhibition in Beijing, on August 17, 1971 the State Council issued a directive concerning the selection and submission of excavated artefacts for an exhibition abroad (Wenwu 1979, 409).
In May 1973 an exhibition with the Chinese title Cultural Relics Excavated in the People’s Republic of China (Trésors d’art chinois. Récente découvertes archéologiques de la République Populaire de Chine) opened at the Petit Palais in Paris (Elisseeff and Bobot 1973). Afterwards, it travelled to Tokyo and London, and in the following years to major cities in Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Australia. Archaeology thus became a powerful tool that lent cultural legitimacy to the communist government and an effective support in the Chinese government’s attempts to re-establish diplomatic ties with the outside world.
The slogan “Make the past serve the present” (gu wei jin yong) that adorned the travelling exhibition as a motto, obtained a new meaning. Initially, it was cited ubiquitously as a means of safeguarding the revival of archaeology against ideological attacks in a reading that can be roughly interpreted as “Criticize the feudal rulers of the past in order to denounce the ‘capitalist roaders’ of the present.” In the context of the international exhibitions, however, it could be read as “Display the beauty and wealth of historical craftsmanship in order to demonstrate to the world that present-day China of the Cultural Revolution era did not subscribe to a mission to destroy, but rather to the mission to protect its cultural heritage.”
Notes
- 1.
Another move to distract Red Guard aggression from the Palace Museum in Beijing can be seen in a plan that was allegedly drafted for Peng Zhen, the former mayor of Beijing and one of the highest-ranking victims of the Cultural Revolution. It showed the Forbidden City completely razed and substituted by a “new imperial palace,” supposedly for Peng himself. The revolutionary rage directed against the alleged revisionist Peng Zhen was thus utilized for the preservation of the palace (Ho 2006, 72–73; Martinsen 2010).
- 2.
For an account of the “Destroy the Four Olds” campaign, cf. the chapter “Declaring War on the Old World”, see Yan and Gao 1996, 65–84.
- 3.
The political implications of these connections are indicated by Enzheng Tong who is very critical of Xia Nai: “[Xia Nai’s] authority derived mainly from the authority of the Party; his leadership in archaeology was the concretized leadership of the Party.” (Tong 1995, 196). “Even during the Cultural Revolution, Xia Nai himself was not much affected by this evil storm. Beginning with 1970, when universities and scientific institutions were still closed, and the majority of intellectuals were imprisoned in ‘cowsheds’ or sent to the countryside for re-education, he was personally appointed by Prime Minister Zhou Enlai to receive foreign guests and to visit Albania, Mexico, and Peru, carrying out ‘Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line in foreign affairs’.” (Tong 1995, 196–197, n. 9).
- 4.
This was a very early date compared to magazines sponsored by art institutions like Meishu (Fine Arts) or Wenyibao (Literature and Arts), which were re-launched in 1976 and 1978 respectively.
- 5.
Both journals were directed at international audiences: Chinese Literature was published in English (Hsiao 1971), and China Pictorial (Renmin Huabao) in a variety of languages, including Chinese. I quote from the German edition (Kulturgegenstände 1971). The layout and pagination are identical with the Chinese edition.
- 6.
- 7.
This relationship between the articles in Kaogu and the Cultural Relics booklet is not mentioned anywhere but becomes evident in a comparison of the texts.
- 8.
Articles from 1977 and 1978 commemorating Zhou Enlai and Guo Moruo relate that both were informed immediately about the find and gave it high priority, sending an excavation team from the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences to assist the team set up by the Hebei Province authorities (Xia 1977, 6; Xia 1978, 221).
- 9.
For detailed information on the tombs, cf. the excavation report published in 1980 (Zhongguo Shehui Kexueyuan and Hebei Sheng Wenwu Guanlichu 1980); discussions in Western languages include Thorp and Jansen (Thorp 1991; Jansen 1994). On the ritual functions of the tomb architecture, the furnishings, and the use of stone cf. Wu 1997, 148–153; for the cosmological implications cf. Rawson (1999). According to Jessica Rawson, great tombs like these were meant “to realize the potential of the universe and to make that potential manifest for the benefit of the Liu family kings and their associates” (Rawson 1999, 54). Treasures from the Mancheng tombs have been displayed outside of China in numerous exhibitions and studied in the following catalogues, starting with Trésors d’art chinois, Paris 1973 (Elisseeff and Bobot 1973), and including Das alte China, Essen 1995 (Goepper 1995) and The Golden Age of Archaeology Washington, D.C. 1999 (Yang 1999; cf. Yang 2004, 263–266). For a general account of Han tombs cf. Erickson 2010. For recent Chinese-language publications on the Mancheng tombs cf. Zheng 2003, and Lu 2005. Both authors participated in the excavations in 1968 and co-authored the excavation report of 1980.
- 10.
- 11.
“When, however, these tombs and their furnishings are compared to other kingly burials of the period and to pre-Han burials of roughly equivalent local lords, the Mancheng finds do not appear to set any records for either ambition or indulgence” (Thorp 1991, 36).
- 12.
For a detailed study on the popularization of science in the early 1970s, especially in the field of paleoanthropology, cf. Schmalzer 2006.
- 13.
- 14.
For an account of the technical details, the issues of ownership, the production, and the related social costs concerning the Changxin Palace Lamp cf. Barbieri-Low (2007, 10–17).
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Noth, J. (2015). “Make the Past Serve the Present”: Reading Cultural Relics Excavated During the Cultural Revolution of 1972. In: Falser, M. (eds) Cultural Heritage as Civilizing Mission. Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13638-7_8
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