One of things I heard (or read) about the three sacred treasures of Shintล, the mirror, the sword, and the jewel, was that the technology for creating those items only arrived in Japan in early years of the first millennium.
I think the first two were imports from China or Korea but not sure of the last one. China was so technologically superior to her neighbors at that time--it was one of the first things that really surprised me about Japan. I am also interested when technologies are lost--like the blue glaze found on Ru ware pottery. Chinese and Japanese researchers are unable to reproduce it. Saturn 9 rocket technology also mainly lost. These kinds of gaps always make me think!!
(Edited comment) I found this article and the parent article you link to extremely interesting. For me it points to the subtleties of "looting". Is it any less looting if the object taken is accorded great value by the looters and little by the owners?
I'd like to add a different dimension here. A few years ago I visited Anyang in China, location of the capital of the ancient Shang dynasty. There was a small museum there showing artefacts from the ancient city. On the wall of one room was a big illuminated sign saying that many of the bronzes from Anyang had been taken by Western collectors and were housed in museums in the West. Fair enough.
But I was struck by a certain irony. In the middle of the room there was a large and striking bronze object, one of the prize objects from the site. Upon reading the explanation, however, it was clear that this impressive object was a replica. The original had been taken to Beijing and was on display there.
I do not condone the looting of precious objects from other cultures, but, as you suggest, the circumstances of such "looting" are not always straightforward. If my understanding is correct, collectors in the West were buying bronzes from China at a time when they were not accorded great value in China itself. Does it matter if the possessor accords little value to an object that a looter/acquirer covets? Perhaps the problem is as much one of "collecting" as it is of "looting", which is one of the most brazen ways of getting hold of cultural artefacts. Even modern-day collectors of all kinds (not just collectors of art objects) are notorious for using every means they can to get their hands on prized specimens.
Secondly, I find the removal of a precious cultural artefact from its original site to be housed in a museum in a distant capital city to be problematic. There is an element of nationalism in this kind of "looting" -- seeing local sites as part of the "national narrative", which justifies the removal of artefacts from their original site to the "national capital". I was certainly disappointed that a trip to an important historical site was devalued by the fact that all that was left there was a replica of the unearthed object.
I would add that probably no Chinese would agree with me. "It's ours. Why should you have any say in what we do with it?" Perhaps. But for the Chinese to criticise Western collectors for stealing their artworks while themselves taking them away from where they belong seems to me to be a difference in motivation only. My personal feeling is that the object should have remained where it was in the Shang capital.
"They have been prized and collected as antiquities in China since at least the 12th century A.D., though most known examples were excavated relatively recently, during the 19th and 20th centuries, usually by peasants who dug them out of the ground more or less by chance but later by archaeologists both Chinese and Western (of course those in the latter category are not available on the art market). For a long time, Chinese collectors shunned ritual bronzes because of an ingrained aversion to owning objects that came out of tombs, leaving the field to Europeans and American. More recently, that taboo has relaxed, and archaic Chinese bronzes are aggressively collected in the East and West alike."
Iโm in Tennessee trying to dictate this on my cell phone so I just canโt write a proper response. But yes they have been collected quite vigorously especially in the northern song dynasty but theyโve always been great collectors prizes. Zhao Mingcheng, Huizongโs return to antiquity etc
I definitely disagree that bringing some of the Shang artifacts to the nationโs capital is every bed hours, violent as what we saw in the silk road with silk rotors literally putting paintings off walls. Especially in this particular case that you mentioned, which I wasnโt writing about whatsoever in my essay, Iโm not sure which of my examples youโre reacting to right now, kiss you bring up I think it is actually their own heritage the Chinese case with regard to Shang artifacts is fairly straightforward compared to the Getty bronze for example. I read those of Hesslerโs books ๐
I'm sorry you disagree with me. I was writing about the general phenomenon of "cultural looting" on the part of the West. Yes, it was inexcusably arrogant to rip paintings off the walls. I am not agreeing with this kind of vandalism and theft. These bronzes were not quite the same, although the result might be the same.
I went from Beijing to Anyang to see the site of the ancient Shang capital. I was deeply disappointed to find that one of the glories of that site had been removed to Beijing, where it was used to reinforce a particular historical narrative. Viewed in Anyang it would have added to the huge cultural and historical significance of the site. Viewed in Beijing, it could only be seen as part of a Chinese nationalist historical narrative, 5,000 years of our great civilisation, etc. I'm afraid I do not accept the Chinese nationalist historical narrative as it has been embraced in China, whether it is "5,000 years of history", or Han Chinese as the centre and "minority ethnicities" as subservient to the central narrative. Removing antiquities to the centre for the good of the nation does not strike me as COMPLETELY different from removing antiquities from colonies to the "centres of Western civilisation". The mentality might be different; the result is similar -- the removal of antiquities to a "better place".
(Incidentally, I was somewhat taken aback by one guide I met in Anyang who commented approvingly that the Japanese of the time showed much more interest in oracle bones and the antiquities of Anyang than Chinese people do.)
Sorry for the typos above... but yes, I don't think there is much legal or moral grounds to say that there is "no difference" in the violence (your word) between moving Shang artifacts to Beijing as it is to bringing them across the ocean. Even if you walk the statement way back as you did and say it is not completely different. The reason is that your choice of an example is not a good one since the Shang artifacts were not only found within the current border of the country but in contrast to Egypt's Pharaonic artifacts there is far more racial and cultural/linguistic continuity. I think the case you are making has more in common with Benin bronzes. And sure in Benin maybe some guide might say "I am glad the Brits took the Bronzes since they were so interested" but that is not a moral argument, more a legal one. You don't have to buy any narratives about Benin cultural continuity or even Chinese but they have a bigger claim than Paris or London. AND we are not talking about 100% and every last artifact in either case. Just many or all of the best examples. Also you did not qualify differences in what "a better place" means above (better in terms of heritage I mean, not conservation)
I am still totally confused what in my essay inspired your rant about China.
I've edited my original comment to (1) make it more germane to the article and (2) make it more coherent, and (3) make it seem less "off the wall" by removing some of the more extreme formulations. Since your response was written with regard to the initial more extreme formulation, it will not necessarily make sense. In particular, I have removed the reference to removing objects to the national capital as a similar kind of "violence" to looting, to which you rightly took exception.
Looting is a form of rapine, to satisfy the lust of collectors and museums. But I also find the removal of objects to a different location to satisfy a national political narrative, while having different motivations, to be objectionable. Not "violent" (sorry, that was the wrong word) in the way that Westerners were who stole objects during the colonial period, but still objectionable, in that local areas are left with replicas while valuable objects are removed to the centre of cultural and political power.
Both museums and zoos in their modern form appear to be a colonial Western institution having the aim of bringing objects/animals from round the world (for colonial powers, the world was indeed "their oyster") to display them in one place, for the edification of both researchers and the general public. Perhaps I am questioning not just looting, but the fetishisation of objects (and animals), and the obsession with collecting them in one place, which lies behind the removal of artefacts (violently or otherwise) from their original milieu. I will end on that inconclusive note.
โค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธ Best comment ever!
I love this one!!
me to my girl โyoure so wabi-sabiโ ๐๐ *bows*
cool post ๐
โค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธ
One of things I heard (or read) about the three sacred treasures of Shintล, the mirror, the sword, and the jewel, was that the technology for creating those items only arrived in Japan in early years of the first millennium.
I think the first two were imports from China or Korea but not sure of the last one. China was so technologically superior to her neighbors at that time--it was one of the first things that really surprised me about Japan. I am also interested when technologies are lost--like the blue glaze found on Ru ware pottery. Chinese and Japanese researchers are unable to reproduce it. Saturn 9 rocket technology also mainly lost. These kinds of gaps always make me think!!
(Edited comment) I found this article and the parent article you link to extremely interesting. For me it points to the subtleties of "looting". Is it any less looting if the object taken is accorded great value by the looters and little by the owners?
I'd like to add a different dimension here. A few years ago I visited Anyang in China, location of the capital of the ancient Shang dynasty. There was a small museum there showing artefacts from the ancient city. On the wall of one room was a big illuminated sign saying that many of the bronzes from Anyang had been taken by Western collectors and were housed in museums in the West. Fair enough.
But I was struck by a certain irony. In the middle of the room there was a large and striking bronze object, one of the prize objects from the site. Upon reading the explanation, however, it was clear that this impressive object was a replica. The original had been taken to Beijing and was on display there.
I do not condone the looting of precious objects from other cultures, but, as you suggest, the circumstances of such "looting" are not always straightforward. If my understanding is correct, collectors in the West were buying bronzes from China at a time when they were not accorded great value in China itself. Does it matter if the possessor accords little value to an object that a looter/acquirer covets? Perhaps the problem is as much one of "collecting" as it is of "looting", which is one of the most brazen ways of getting hold of cultural artefacts. Even modern-day collectors of all kinds (not just collectors of art objects) are notorious for using every means they can to get their hands on prized specimens.
Secondly, I find the removal of a precious cultural artefact from its original site to be housed in a museum in a distant capital city to be problematic. There is an element of nationalism in this kind of "looting" -- seeing local sites as part of the "national narrative", which justifies the removal of artefacts from their original site to the "national capital". I was certainly disappointed that a trip to an important historical site was devalued by the fact that all that was left there was a replica of the unearthed object.
I would add that probably no Chinese would agree with me. "It's ours. Why should you have any say in what we do with it?" Perhaps. But for the Chinese to criticise Western collectors for stealing their artworks while themselves taking them away from where they belong seems to me to be a difference in motivation only. My personal feeling is that the object should have remained where it was in the Shang capital.
It appears that my speculation about Chinese not being interested in collecting ancient bronzes was off the mark. From https://www.artandantiquesmag.com/chinese-bronzes/
"They have been prized and collected as antiquities in China since at least the 12th century A.D., though most known examples were excavated relatively recently, during the 19th and 20th centuries, usually by peasants who dug them out of the ground more or less by chance but later by archaeologists both Chinese and Western (of course those in the latter category are not available on the art market). For a long time, Chinese collectors shunned ritual bronzes because of an ingrained aversion to owning objects that came out of tombs, leaving the field to Europeans and American. More recently, that taboo has relaxed, and archaic Chinese bronzes are aggressively collected in the East and West alike."
So I again stand corrected.
Iโm in Tennessee trying to dictate this on my cell phone so I just canโt write a proper response. But yes they have been collected quite vigorously especially in the northern song dynasty but theyโve always been great collectors prizes. Zhao Mingcheng, Huizongโs return to antiquity etc
I definitely disagree that bringing some of the Shang artifacts to the nationโs capital is every bed hours, violent as what we saw in the silk road with silk rotors literally putting paintings off walls. Especially in this particular case that you mentioned, which I wasnโt writing about whatsoever in my essay, Iโm not sure which of my examples youโre reacting to right now, kiss you bring up I think it is actually their own heritage the Chinese case with regard to Shang artifacts is fairly straightforward compared to the Getty bronze for example. I read those of Hesslerโs books ๐
I'm sorry you disagree with me. I was writing about the general phenomenon of "cultural looting" on the part of the West. Yes, it was inexcusably arrogant to rip paintings off the walls. I am not agreeing with this kind of vandalism and theft. These bronzes were not quite the same, although the result might be the same.
I went from Beijing to Anyang to see the site of the ancient Shang capital. I was deeply disappointed to find that one of the glories of that site had been removed to Beijing, where it was used to reinforce a particular historical narrative. Viewed in Anyang it would have added to the huge cultural and historical significance of the site. Viewed in Beijing, it could only be seen as part of a Chinese nationalist historical narrative, 5,000 years of our great civilisation, etc. I'm afraid I do not accept the Chinese nationalist historical narrative as it has been embraced in China, whether it is "5,000 years of history", or Han Chinese as the centre and "minority ethnicities" as subservient to the central narrative. Removing antiquities to the centre for the good of the nation does not strike me as COMPLETELY different from removing antiquities from colonies to the "centres of Western civilisation". The mentality might be different; the result is similar -- the removal of antiquities to a "better place".
(Incidentally, I was somewhat taken aback by one guide I met in Anyang who commented approvingly that the Japanese of the time showed much more interest in oracle bones and the antiquities of Anyang than Chinese people do.)
Sorry for the typos above... but yes, I don't think there is much legal or moral grounds to say that there is "no difference" in the violence (your word) between moving Shang artifacts to Beijing as it is to bringing them across the ocean. Even if you walk the statement way back as you did and say it is not completely different. The reason is that your choice of an example is not a good one since the Shang artifacts were not only found within the current border of the country but in contrast to Egypt's Pharaonic artifacts there is far more racial and cultural/linguistic continuity. I think the case you are making has more in common with Benin bronzes. And sure in Benin maybe some guide might say "I am glad the Brits took the Bronzes since they were so interested" but that is not a moral argument, more a legal one. You don't have to buy any narratives about Benin cultural continuity or even Chinese but they have a bigger claim than Paris or London. AND we are not talking about 100% and every last artifact in either case. Just many or all of the best examples. Also you did not qualify differences in what "a better place" means above (better in terms of heritage I mean, not conservation)
I am still totally confused what in my essay inspired your rant about China.
I've edited my original comment to (1) make it more germane to the article and (2) make it more coherent, and (3) make it seem less "off the wall" by removing some of the more extreme formulations. Since your response was written with regard to the initial more extreme formulation, it will not necessarily make sense. In particular, I have removed the reference to removing objects to the national capital as a similar kind of "violence" to looting, to which you rightly took exception.
Looting is a form of rapine, to satisfy the lust of collectors and museums. But I also find the removal of objects to a different location to satisfy a national political narrative, while having different motivations, to be objectionable. Not "violent" (sorry, that was the wrong word) in the way that Westerners were who stole objects during the colonial period, but still objectionable, in that local areas are left with replicas while valuable objects are removed to the centre of cultural and political power.
Both museums and zoos in their modern form appear to be a colonial Western institution having the aim of bringing objects/animals from round the world (for colonial powers, the world was indeed "their oyster") to display them in one place, for the edification of both researchers and the general public. Perhaps I am questioning not just looting, but the fetishisation of objects (and animals), and the obsession with collecting them in one place, which lies behind the removal of artefacts (violently or otherwise) from their original milieu. I will end on that inconclusive note.
โค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธ Best comment ever!