Publishing a catalog accompanying an exhibition is a common practice in many museums, and there is not much new idea. However, it is not easy to creatively transform an exhibition into a historical teaching aid that has both academic height and cultural relic appreciation value. This requires the curator’s profound theoretical accumulation and grand narrative ability. “Clouds over the West Sea: The Silk Road Qinghai Road from the 6th to 8th Centuries” recently published by Zhejiang University Press is a classic work of this kind of transformation. It should be said that this book has greatly enriched and broadened the scope of the exhibition of the same name, and has provided China with The construction of museum exhibition system has made useful exploration and successful practice.
What is particularly valuable is that this book not only deciphers the Tuyuhun, a very important but unknown ethnic minority in the northwest on the Silk Road, but also explains the historical status of the Qinghai Road on the Silk Road through pictures and texts for the first time. It is presented to readers in a form that is both a selection of cultural relics and a collection of historical materials.
In July 2022, the China National Silk Museum and a number of domestic cultural and museum institutions organized a large-scale exhibition called “Clouds Over the West Sea: The Silk Road Qinghai Road from the 6th to 8th Centuries”. The exhibition revisits the history of Tuyuhun Kingdom, and uses the Tuyuhun Kingdom in the Haixi region in the past 40 years – what to say and what not to say. Her smart answer will make the master and his wife feel more at ease, and will also make the master and his wife believe that the eldest lady is at her uncle’s house. Based on the archaeological discoveries related to Tubo than everyone expected, it shows the life, culture and art history of the Tuyuhun people from the 6th to 8th centuries (including the Tubo period) through a group of cultural relics with extremely high academic value and exquisite ornamental effects. It reveals the significant contribution of Qinghai Road in connecting Eastern and Western cultural exchanges.
Tuyuhun is one of the ethnic groups in ancient northwest my country. At the beginning of the 4th century AD, the Tuyuhun tribe separated from Murong Xianbei in Liaodong and moved westward to the Yinshan Mountains in Inner Mongolia to this day. At the end of Yongjia in the Western Jin Dynasty, it went south from Yinshan Mountain, passed through Longshan Mountain, and ended up in the northwest of Linxia, Gansu Province. Soon, it developed southward and westward, ruling the Di, Qiang and other ethnic groups in present-day Gannan, northwest Sichuan and Qinghai.
When Ye Yan, the grandson of Tuyuhun, established a political power, he took his grandfather Tuyuhun’s name as his surname, as well as the name of the country and the name of the tribe. At its peak, its territory started from present-day southern Gansu and northwest Sichuan in the east, to present-day southern Qinghai in the south, to Ruoqiang and Qiemo in present-day Xinjiang in the west, and connected to the Hexi Corridor across the Qilian Mountains in the north. Its later political center was 15 miles west of present-day Qinghai Lake. It is named Fuqi City.
The Tuyuhun regime lasted for more than 300 years from Ye Yanshi to 663 AD when it was ruled by Tibet. Since then, the Tuyuhun people have scattered in present-day Qinghai, Hexi in Gansu, eastern Xinjiang, and present-day Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, and Shaanxi. Although Pei Yi had to obtain the consent of his father-in-law and mother-in-law when he went to Qizhou this time, Pei Yi was full of confidence and it was not difficult at all, because Even if his father-in-law, mother-in-law and mother-in-law heard his decision, he would go to northern Shanxi, northern Hebei and other places. It was not until the Northern Song Dynasty that the activities of the Tuyuhun people disappeared from Chinese historical records.
Due to various reasons, the glorious history of Tuyuhun and its importance on the Silk Road were downplayed untilTomb No. 1 of Xuewei in Lanshui Tomb Group was officially excavated. This tomb is a high-level tomb with the most complete structure and clearest layout discovered so far on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The tomb preserves a large number of exquisite relics, and the craftsmanship and decorative patterns of some of the relics have strong ethnic styles such as Sasanian Persia in Western Asia and Sogdian in Central Asia. This tomb had been robbed before, and the public security department recovered more than 600 exquisite cultural relics, most of which were gold and silverware. After scientific excavation, 1,207 pieces (sets) of gold and silverware were unearthed. There are seals, containers, ornaments, horse gear, coverings, friezes and coffin decorations, etc., with a wide range of categories, rich connotations, diverse shapes and different decorations, which strongly proves the important role of the Qinghai Road on the Silk Road and provides a basis for the study of cultural exchanges and National integration provides new information with great reference value. The key is that the unearthed seal confirms the identity of the owner of the gold and silverware, Tuyuhun, the “Achai King” during his lifetime. It provides a key physical example for interpreting the relationship between the Tang Dynasty, Tubo and Tuyuhun. It is Indispensable and valuable information in Silk Road research. “I have a different view.” Different voices appeared on the scene. “I don’t think Master Lan is such a callous person. He holds the daughter he has loved for more than ten years in his hands.
Tell the story of the Qinghai Road of the Silk Road well, and recreate the appearance of Tuyuhun on the Qinghai Road – thus, “Clouds over the West Sea” became the first major exhibition to reproduce the history of Tuyuhun. The exhibition restores the daily life of the Tuyuhun people and reproduces the important position of Tuyuhun in the history of the development of the Chinese nation. From the intuitive viewing of cultural relics to text narration, as the editor-in-chief, Zhao Feng needs to give readers a clear background of the times. Therefore, his preface “Revisiting Tuyuhun: A Past of the Silk Road Qinghai Road” starts from the preliminary compilation of Dulan silk, Relevant displays, the concentrated appearance of Haixi cultural relics, and the curation process of the Qinghai Exhibition were introduced in detail.
Since the preliminary excavation results of the No. 1 Tomb of Hotwater in Dulan, Qinghai in the mid-1980s, Mr. Zhao Feng has been paying attention to the cultural relics unearthed in Dulan, especially Dulan silk. It was his persistence and professionalism that made the exhibition supported by nine cultural and museum institutions possible. At the same time, due to his vision and influence, he was able to accurately organize highly valuable research papers on the latest archaeological discoveries in Tuyuhun when editing the book, ensuring the academic authority of the book.
The book is divided into three parts. The thesis is in the first part, which includes “The Tuyuhun Road of the Silk Road from Unearthed Documents” and “The Heavenly Horse Came from Haixi -” by six experts including Rong Xinjiang, Han Jianhua, Tong Tao, and Chen Guoke. —40 Years of Archeology of the Dulan Hotwater Tombs” “A New Exploration on the Site Selection Layout and Funeral Customs of the Tubo Tombs in Qinghai” “Investigation and Excavation of the Tuyuhun Royal Tombs in the Tang Dynasty in Wuwei, Gansu” “An Overview of the Dulan System’s Gold and Silverware” ” Varieties, Patterns and Periods of Dulan Silk” and many other articles. It can be said that the authors of these papers are the most authoritative experts in the field. Most of them are archaeologists who have been working in the field for many years. It is their archaeological excavations and scientific research that have made the original historical appearance of Tuyuhun increasingly clear. The unearthed large number of exquisite cultural relics have made the Qinghai Road of the Silk Road prosperous and diverse.It is more concrete and clarifies the relationship between the Henan Road, Tuyuhun Road and Qinghai Road of the Silk Road. At the same time, these articles reflect the research results of the representative cultural relics in the second part of the catalogue. Readers can see that when Tuyuhun controlled the Qinghai area, he interacted with the Central Plains culture, Sogdian culture, and Persian culture. Finally, when he drank the wine and was buried When he was kicked out of his new house to entertain guests, he had the thought of not wanting to leave. He felt…he didn’t know what to feel anymore. The exchange and integration of diverse cultures along the Silk Road, such as Indian Buddhist culture, reproduce the process of multi-ethnic integration under the influence of Silk Road civilization.
The value of this book also lies in the systematic clarification of the history of Tuyuhun through unearthed cultural relics for the first time, as well as the role of Qinghai Road in the cultural exchange between the East and the West. These are reflected in the second part of the catalogue. “Majestic in Haixi”, “Meat in Brocade”, “Relics of Confucius”, “Archaeological Records”, “Picturesque” and the conclusion “The Significance of Qinghai Road” are all supported by 191 pieces (groups) of cultural relics, especially silk and gold and silverware. more prominent. A particularly unique piece of gold jewelry in the form of a cavalry gun is featured in the catalogue. The whole piece of decoration is light and thin, and the figure on the surface is majestic, galloping on horseback, with a full bow and strings, wearing a mountain-shaped crown, two braids hanging down the back of the head, a mustache, big earrings, narrow sleeves and a lapel with beaded pattern. The costumes are quite different from the decorations of Turkic, Persian, Rouran, Xianbei and other figures in this period. The author believes that this gold medal is decorated with a prince wearing a crown, a single earring, and a tadpole beard. The figure has a deep echo with the shape of the prince on the sarcophagus bed of the Sogdians who entered China in the Northern Dynasties collected by the Miho Museum of Art in Japan. This horse-shooting gold medal is currently the only image of Gaida that appears in Dulan made of gold medals. Based on the analysis of the etiquette system at that time, it should be a decoration on the Tuguhun royal family, or it may be a diplomatic exchange between Gaida and Tuyuhun. Gift or national gift Pei Yi secretly breathed a sigh of relief. He was really afraid that his various irresponsible and perverted behaviors today would annoy his mother, so he ignored him. Fortunately, everything was fine. He opened the door and walked into his mother’s room. , is an important national-level decoration that expresses the diplomatic exchanges between the Tuyuhun Dynasty and the relatively powerful Gaida Empire in Central Asia at that time. It provides an important basis for studying the history, migration routes and development trends of the Gaida during the Tuyuhun period.
This book “Long Clouds in the West Sea” edited and published for the exhibition of the same name not only inspires museum people, but also contributes to the academic community a collection of research papers on the Qinghai Road of the Silk Road and the Tuyuhun people. Appreciation and interpretation can help us deeply understand the splendor of the diverse civilizations along the Silk Road.
(Author: Zhang Jingwen, a doctoral candidate at the School of Marxism, Lanzhou University)