Lost Civilizations: Data on stolen cultural relics in China

The previously popular online short film "Escape from the British Museum" has once again brought the somewhat poignant issue of "returning cultural relics" into the public eye.

In fact, the theft of cultural relics is still a severe test faced by the international community. The theft, excavation and illegal trafficking of cultural relics are important reasons for the depletion of cultural heritage resources and the destruction of historical memories and cultural genes in many countries.

China's Stolen Cultural Relics Information Release Platform is the National Cultural Relics Crime Information Center established at the Shaanxi Provincial Public Security Department under the guidance of the Ministry of Public Security and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage. Its main function is to provide legal basis for the legal pursuit of cultural relics lost overseas in my country, and to combat cultural relics crimes and regulate cultural relics. Provide information support for market management and other work, and provide reporting channels for the general public to participate in cultural relics protection work.

Read the above data carefully and it is shocking.

More than 2,230 cultural relics have been lost since 1900

On June 9 this year, Luoyang police cracked the "10·21" huge cultural relics reselling case. The cultural relics involved in the case include 8 first-level cultural relics, 67 second-level cultural relics, and 592 third-level cultural relics. Among them, the word "China" appears in two inscriptions on the bronze mirror of the first-class cultural relic "Zhaojun Leaving the Fortress" - this is the earliest known inscription recording the word "China" and is physical evidence of the Central Plains dynasty's opposition to foreign powers. This shows that in the Han Dynasty, compared with foreign regimes such as the Xiongnu, "China" was already the Central Plains regime and the self-understanding and identity of the descendants of Yan and Huang. This bronze mirror, which almost disappeared, is an important historical clue for Chinese civilization’s self-exploration and self-understanding.

In fact, there are still a large number of cultural relics quietly "lost" in China.

According to information from China's Stolen Cultural Relics Information Release Platform, since 1900, a total of more than 2,230 cultural relics have been lost and unrecovered, with the incidents scattered across 19 provinces.

So far, the platform has released 719 pieces of data on cultural relics lost after 1980. After cleaning and reviewing the data, we compiled the information on these artifacts.

In the past ten years, the number of domestic cultural relics lost has not decreased significantly. Between 2011 and 2021, the platform released as many as 358 pieces of domestic cultural relic theft information. Major cases of cultural relics still occur in various places from time to time. The number of stolen cultural relics in Tibet has ranked among the top three in many periods of time, followed closely by Shaanxi, Ningxia, Henan and other places.

The ancient cultural relics in the database are mainly concentrated in the Ming and Qing dynasties, accounting for about 46%. The Ming and Qing cultural relics have a large collection and high preservation integrity, so their value for trading after theft is greater. During the Tang, Song and Han Dynasties, culture flourished, and the corresponding cultural heritage collections were also larger.

A closer look at the production techniques of these stolen cultural relics shows that 7% of the stolen "wheel-made" cultural relics are mostly from famous kilns, are exquisite and elegant, and reflect the aesthetic trend of the time; 26% of the "other molding techniques" include those that have been Exquisite crafts such as Beijing utensil craftsmanship and Tibetan Thangka art are listed as intangible cultural heritage; the "forged" utensils or statues accounting for 12% are mostly magnificent, and the engraved plaques and inscriptions are mostly written by famous artists.

Cases of theft of cultural relics are divided into two categories based on the places where the theft occurs, and can be divided into two categories: theft of cultural relics from collections and theft from ancient tombs and ancient cultural sites.

When we sorted out the information on China's Stolen Cultural Relics Information Platform according to "stolen location", a set of astonishing figures emerged: there are actually 9 cultural relics sites, and more than 10 cultural relics have not been recovered so far, among which the most serious A total of 127 cultural relics were stolen from the museum and have not been recovered!

Further analysis of these nine venues revealed that, except for the cliff Buddha statue stolen from Foziyan Village, other cultural relics were stolen from institutions or units that specialize in preserving cultural relics, such as the Yongbulakang Hall, which is second only to the Potala Palace in Tibet. Or the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts Library, which has a large collection of paintings by famous artists.

The Guangmei painting theft case in 2015 caused a sensation. As the former director of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts Library, Xiao Yuan used his position to subcontract 143 famous paintings from the library's collection of calligraphers and painters such as Zhang Daqian and Qi Baishi. Among them, Zhu Da's "Two Birds on a Lake and Stone" alone is worth more than 30 million yuan. . Xiao Yuan was arrested in May 2014, and the remaining 18 unsold works in his home were seized by the investigation agency. They were appraised and valued at approximately 76.817 million yuan. Together with the 125 works he had sold earlier, the total stolen value was as high as 110 million yuan.

Xiao Yuan's method of committing the crime was not complicated. He simply used the authority of the curator to transfer some key professional staff, and used emergency fire prevention as an excuse to duplicate a set of warehouse keys that should be kept by three people. held by himself. However, for several years, teachers and students in Guangmei were completely unaware of this, and were "shocked" only after the incident.

From a legal point of view, there is no basis for the recovery of the auctioned paintings. Although Guangmei made many public appeals after Xiao Yuan was arrested, hoping that the owners of the paintings would "fully release their goodwill and promote the early return of this collection", but in Nothing can be done.

Wang Yigang, director of the Art Museum of Lu Xun Institute of Art, once said: "The university's collection of treasures is no less than that of any museum, but the collection and research system is relatively imperfect."

The popularity of tomb robbing novels such as "Ghost Blows Out the Lamp", "Tomb Robbery Notes" and "The King of Tomb Robbers" has given the profession of tomb robbing an element of "mystery" and "curiosity", but that is a disaster for cultural relics.

Today, cultural relic thieves are no longer satisfied with just focusing on the tombs of their ancestors, but are looking at all ancient cultural sites, targeting any valuable cultural relics.

In the novel, tomb robbers are capable of both literary and military skills, and they are even divided into southern and northern factions. When fantasy falls into reality, what is the true face of "Captain Touching Gold"?

We searched the Judgment Documents Network using the keywords "cultural relics theft" and "cultural relics trading" and obtained 283 judgments. After combing and analyzing the documents, we gave a profile of the "Golden Colonel".

Low educational level and financial distress are the basic conditions of most "golden captains". Most of the people involved were idle and unemployed people who swarmed in just because of greed.

Moreover, the criminal record rate of tomb robbers is as high as 36%, and among them there are many habitual criminals who have stolen cultural relics for the second time and the third time. On the one hand, this is reminiscent of the proverb "It is easy to change a country, but it is difficult to change one's nature"; on the other hand, it also shows that cultural relic theft does have its own "rules" and "thresholds", and the groups involved are professional and non-professional. coexistence.

With the help of this portrait, it is enough to peel off the filter of literature and get a glimpse of the true appearance of the "gold captains" in reality.

Analysis of data from the Judgment Document Network found that criminal gangs that steal cultural relics often play the role of organizers and initiators, connecting individuals who do not know each other to form a complete theft force.

From the perspective of social network theory, criminal gangs show link strength of weak ties. At the same time, because some criminals do not have direct contact through intermediaries, the criminal relationship network has certain "structural holes."

Further analysis reveals that the network of tomb robbers is quite complicated, with friends, relatives, inmates, and villagers from the same village all intertwined with various forces, among which human relationships are the most obvious clue.

Luoyang shovel, compass... through the spread of tomb robbing novels, the public is no stranger to these tools.

However, in reality, most of the sharp weapons that cultural relic thieves plunder wantonly are more rampant and brutal. "Explosives" and "detonators" are particularly striking words in the verdict.

For cultural relic thieves, cheap and destructive explosives are undoubtedly a powerful tool for breaking through soil and digging graves. Making detonators, drilling holes, filling explosives, and blasting - there is a "bang" sound, and huge "profits" trickle into the thieves' pockets.

"Take one thing and destroy a hundred." This is a sad summary of tomb robbing by archaeological experts.

"It has caused a certain degree of damage to the historical and scientific value of the ancient tombs" "It has caused a certain degree of damage to the integrity of the tomb area and its historical and scientific value"... The damage caused by tomb robbing is often difficult to estimate because it is not done without The excavated tombs may contain important historical discoveries, but once they are destroyed, they will be lost forever.

No one can answer whether among the cultural relics destroyed in hundreds of tomb robbery cases, there are precious cultural relics inscribed with important clues of "Chinese" history like the "Zhaojun Leaving the Fortress" bronze mirror. What we see are just the scars left by those devastated robber holes on the body of Chinese civilization.

Central financial support is the most important source of funds for cultural relics protection in my country. Since the reform and opening up, the central government's special funds for cultural relics protection have continued to rise from 70 million yuan in 1978. After 2010, the funding for cultural relics protection jumped to billions of yuan. By 2013, the amount of special funds allocated by the central government reached tens of billions, becoming the main source of local cultural relics protection funds.

After 2014, the central government's cultural relics protection funding allocation began to decline year by year, from 7.261 billion yuan in 2014 to 6.383 billion yuan in 2022, a decrease of 12.09%. The proportion of cultural relics protection expenditures in national public financial expenditures has remained at a low level and has declined slightly.

Compared with the annual growth of education and medical expenditures, which also provide service public goods and have industry systems with hierarchical management from the central to local governments, cultural relics protection funds account for a small proportion.

In terms of staffing, facing my country’s huge movable cultural relics resources, the existing cultural relics staff are far from sufficient. According to the recent "China Cultural Relics Statistical Yearbook", there are 3,373 institutions in the national cultural relics industry in 2020, with 31,959 employees. In terms of specific distribution, the provincial, district and municipal cultural relics departments have an average of 97 people per institution, and the prefecture-level cultural relics departments Each institution has an average of 89 people, and at the county or city level, each institution has an average of only 16 people.

The gap in the distribution of professional talents is even more obvious. Each institution of cultural relics departments at the provincial and district levels can have 14 professional talents, 10 at the prefectural and municipal levels, and only 2 at the county and city levels. With such limited staffing resources, Many cultural relics are difficult to effectively protect.

What about the funding situation for local cultural relics protection? Expenditure of local cultural relics protection funds is an active choice of local governments. However, the amount of expenditure is greatly affected by local finance. There is a large gap between the cultural relics protection funds in economically underdeveloped areas and the cultural relics protection funds in economically developed areas.

In economically developed regions such as Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, local governments attach greater importance to allocating funds for cultural relics protection. However, the number of movable cultural relics is as high as 7 million, and Shaanxi is the second largest cultural relics province in the country. Its local cultural relics protection allocation is only 3/5 of Jiangsu. In addition to the influencing factor of local government attention, local economic development will also affect the investment of local cultural relics protection funds.

The "2023 Museum Data Report" released by Douyin shows that in the past year, the total number of museum-related videos played on Douyin was 51.34 billion times, and the cumulative duration of related videos reached 240,000 hours.

The towering trees must have their roots; the water in the mountains must have their sources.

Since the preliminary study was launched in 2001, the Chinese Civilization Discovery Project has not only basically clarified the origin and early development process of Chinese civilization, but also summarized the characteristics of Chinese civilization and its position in the history of the development of human civilization, enriching the understanding of the origin of human civilization. theory. Promoting the achievements of exploring the origins of Chinese civilization will surely help the whole society to enhance its historical consciousness and strengthen its cultural confidence. The cultural relics of the sleeping monks that have been excavated are all material carriers of the unique spiritual identity of Chinese civilization. Once stolen or damaged, they will be lost forever.

As far as history is concerned, the time we can control is like a fleeting moment; and the cultural relics we are talking about are truly cultural imprints that trace back the river of time and have come through thousands of years of wind and rain. When we talk about cultural relics, we are actually talking about civilization, history, and even more, ourselves. We sort out the shocking current situation of theft of cultural relics, which is both a warning and an appeal.

This article is an entry for the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Data Journalism Competition. Instructor: Yan Xiaoying.

Authors: Bao Linyi, Jiang Yilin, Qian Siyi, Zhang Cenhou, Zhu Yanxi.

[1]Judgment Documents Website.https://wenshu.court.gov.cn/website/

[2]China Stolen Cultural Relics Information Distribution Platform.http://bdww.ncha.gov.cn/[

3]TheBritishMuseum.https://www.britishmuseum.org/

[4] my country’s Art Appraisal, Valuation and Certification Platform. http://www.mastersappraisal.cn/

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[6] China Cultural Relics and Tourism Statistical Yearbook

[7] Wang Lifeng. Return of overseas cultural relics lost since the founding of New China [J]. Yanhuang Chunqiu, 2022: 17-22.

[8] Zhang Chen. my country’s “first case” to recover lost overseas cultural relics was selected [N]. Rule of Law Daily, 2023-02-08.DOI: 10.28241/n.cnki.nfzrb.2023.000652.

[9] Sanlian News Weekly. Guangmei Painting Theft Case|The Curator’s Fall to the “Elegant Thief”.mp.weixin.qq.com/.

[10]. Luoyang's "10·21" huge cultural relics reselling case was successfully solved, and the "Zhaojun came out of the fortress" bronze mirror led to more than 5,000 cultural relics!

https://news.cctv.com/2023/06/08/ARTI9yV242g0dHNxReLo2iOf230608.shtml

[11] Chinese Academy of History. Chinese Stories in Ten Cultural Relics[M]. China Social Sciences Press, 2022.

[12] Interpretation of several issues regarding the specific application of law in handling cases of theft, illegal excavation, illegal business operations and smuggling of cultural relics [Z].1987-11-12

Web development, typesetting, production: Jiang Yilin, Qian Siyi

Data visualization: Zhang Cenhou, Bao Linyi, Zhu Yanxi, Qian Siyi, Jiang Yilin

The hard-to-gnaw brown sugar group/"Countless" workshop

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