LATEST NEWS FROM THE BRITISH MUSEUM
13 September 1996 - 5 January 1997 Admission charge
To open on 13 September 1996, this great loan exhibition from China, the first to be seen in London for twenty years, will bring to a Western audience some of the most spectacular archaeological finds of the last two decades. Many new discoveries from China's recently excavated tombs reveal astounding evidence of their occupants' personal riches and the wealth of the states they ruled, and show how radically their ways of life and conceptions of the cosmos changed over the 5000 years from the neolithic (c. 4500BC) to the Han dynasty (206BC-AD
220). The emphasis of the exhibition is on religious beliefs, especially those concerned with the spirit world and the afterlife. Chinese kings, queens and nobles, like the ancient Egyptians, lavishly equipped their tombs with a great wealth of objects. But unlike the Egyptians, where many objects were models, for several millennia the ancient Chinese buried real ceramics, jades and bronzes.
The tombs and their contents thus allow us both to picture and imagine the physical and mental worlds of the ancient Chinese, worlds which did not stand still but changed century by century.
During 1986, one of the most startling archaeological revelations of the decade occurred when Chinese archaeologists working in Guanghan, southwest China, uncovered evidence of a completely unknown civilisation dating to 3000 years ago. The dramatic discovery of two large pits, packed with smashed and burned bronze human sculptures and vessels, jades and several curious heads of monsters with huge ears and projecting eyes, together with masses of elephant usks, gold fragments and the charred bones of sacrificial animals, indicated the unexpected existence of a highly organised and powerful state. The rulers, who evidently employed no form of writing, left behind few other traces beyond the extraordinary objects found in the pits, some of which will be included in this exhibition. An enormous human sculpture with giant hands,
standing nearly three metres tall, is one of the most astonishing pieces among many others both strange and peculiar. Its imposingly stern image may represent a royal, a priest or some other authority yet to be interpreted, but this and other absolutely new symbols of power and the puzzling circumstances surrounding their burial raise exciting challenges in our understanding of these mysterious Chinese worlds in remote antiquity.
The exhibition will also show important artistic masterpieces of early Chinese civilisation from China's richest archaeological sites in several distinct regions, little of which has ever been seen in Britain before, all vividly depicting aspects of the very different spiritual worlds created in China's ancient kingdoms. Among them are a pair of gold collars worn by hunting hounds buried with a nobleman, odd zoomorphic creatures such as a bronze crane with towering antlers, a sinister spindly animal made from a root, spirits with feathered wings, a stone divination board decapitation of sacrificial victims, and heavy bronze ritual vessels found in the rich tomb of the
Lady Fu Hao, c. 1 2OOBC, so skillfully cast that they cannot readily be replicated even with modern technology. A major exhibit is the wonderftil jade burial suit of Prince Liu Sheng of the 2nd century BC, worn in the belief that jade lent immortality to the soul, and undoubtedly linked in some way to lavish jade-burying practices of much earlier neolithic societies. Their awe-inspiring legacy is demonstrated by beautifril jades found near Shanghai, finely incised with inexplicable images made at a time when metal tools were unheard of No one knows how they were produced.
While some more familiar symbols of Chinese culture are included, such as a terracotta warrior from the Qin emperors mausoleum, Mysteries of Ancient China' will show China's more distant past in a much less expected light. Many of the objects are literally mysteries which both tantalise and defy explanation, while others bring to life more fully what is already known. This enthralling exhibition will enrich our imagination of early China with an impact so far unequalled, and provide a rare and exciting opportunity to witness amazing recent archaeological discoveries which offer new insights into ancient China's undreamed-of spiritual worlds.
The comprehensively illustrated exhibition catalogue, Mysteries of Ancient China: New discoveries from the early dynasties, edited by Jessica Rawson, will be available from 13 September at the Museum bookshops and other bookshops, price 25 pounds.
250th ANNIVERSARY PROGRAMME OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
BY MATILDE AMILL
Following its traditional charitable interest to help develop, The Clothworkers' Foundation has donated £1 million to support the creation of a World Textile Centre within the future British Museum Study Centre, located at the former Royal Mail West Central Sorting Office, 21-31 New Oxford Street, which will open its doors to the public at the end of 1999.
For the first time, 18,000 textiles from almost every part of the world, at present dispersed around the Museum's departments, will be brought together at The Clothworkers' World Textile Centre on the first floor of the Study Centre occupying 2,000m2 (21,500 ft2).
The Museum's textile collections span the Fayum Neolithic period in Egypt, around 5,000 BC, to the present day. They reflect a variety of domestic1 ritual and ceremonial uses and their design may have complex symbolic meanings.
Important archaeological collections, including those textiles from Ancient Egypt and the Andes, and historical collections of textiles from medieval Europe and Asia would be admired as a whole for the first time, as at present the textiles are dispersed around several locations on different Museum sites.
Of more recent date, superb holdings from Africa, Asia, Europe ,Oceania and North and South America include pieces of great cultural significance.
The largest collection is held by the Department of Ethnography, considered one of the best ethnographic textiles collection in the world.
Treasures of the collections include the magnificent Tahitian mourner's costume made of barkcloth and pearl shell presented to Captain Cook on his second voyage to Oceania, Ancient Egyptian Books of the Dead on linen, a Peruvian embroidered mantle of 400-200 BC, 18th-century Hawaiian feather cloaks, banana-fibre pieces from the Caroline Islands, 19th- century Maori flax cloaks from New Zealand and the most important surviving 17th-century Assamese silk textile.
The conservation of textiles is very important for their long-term preservation. The new World Textile Centre will facilitate a good storage facilities and better conservation treatments as textiles will be stored flat or rolled rather than folded. A Conservation Research Group has joined its forces with the Department of Conservation of the British Museum with the aim of developing new conservation treatments to restore deteriorated pieces.
The Study Centre will be more than simply a storage facility, it will offer new opportunities for public use of the collections and allow visitors to see the behind-the-scenes activities of the Museum, such as conservation projects and post-excavation archaeology. A computerised database will provide enhanced access to the collections. There will be regular demonstrations by specialist conservators of work on organic materials, textiles and papyrus.
The Study Centre will provide a textile library with more than 20,000 volumes as well as a wide range of educational programmes, adult lecture series, specialised programmes for college students, students' rooms for individual research and object-handling for ages 5-14. Full provision will be made for accommodating both adults and children with special needs.
Dr Robert G. W. Anderson, FRSE FSA Director of the British Museum, said the Museum's intention was that the New Study Centre to be as much visited as possible and they intent to continue to have free exhibitions, but perhaps the Museum would have to charge some temporal exhibitions as they do sometimes. It would depend on the agreements the Museum do with the government and their ways of funding.
The Heritage Lottery Fund has also funded The British Museum Study Centre with a grant of £8.1 million.