Relic Reboot
Through adopting new technologies and exhibition designs, museums have seen huge progress in preserving artifacts and cultural relics while introducing them to a wider audience
“This wall is constructed to imitate the actual burial mound of the tomb,” said Wang Jiang, curator of the Northern Qi Dynasty Mural Museum of the Taiyuan National Institute of Cultural Relics Protection, as he lifted his hand to touch the outer museum wall.
The walls mimic those of the actual excavated tomb enclosed by the museum, Wang said, down to marks and cracks caused by weather and erosion, or even wormholes.
Starting in 2015, Wang has overseen every detail of the museum’s construction, down to how the interior lights are adjusted. His hard work has paid off, as the museum has become a shining example of how to construct such a museum, both in cutting edge preservation techniques and providing an authentic yet high-tech visitor experience.
This small museum was constructed over the tomb site of high official Xu Xianxiu of the Northern Qi Dynasty (550-577) buried in 571, the first in-situ preservation site of tomb murals in China, becoming an instant hit with visitors.
Similarly, the new Sanxingdui Museum in Sichuan Province that opened in 2023 and the new Anyang Yinxu Ruins Museum in Henan Province that opened in February 2024 have attracted millions of visitors due to displays of their most recent archaeological finds.
Millions of people have flocked to museums and cultural relics sites across the country, particularly during recent public holidays. It is testament, experts say, to the efforts that China has made in the past decade to build and renovate museums, and improve facilities to make them much more accessible.
Upgraded Preservation
The tomb of Xu Xianxiu, a general of the Northern Qi Dynasty, contains the best-preserved murals from the period, even though they are over 1,500 years old. It caused a sensation when it was excavated in 2002.
More than 500 artifacts have been unearthed, and over 300 square meters of murals have been preserved. The murals depict the life of Xu and his wife, such as banquets, a ceremonial procession and outings. More than 180 people, seven horses, an ox cart and other details are depicted, demonstrating a high level of artistic skill for the era and reflecting how the nobility lived, Wang said.
This museum was built on the tomb site, where the temperature and humidity can be controlled and visitors can enjoy the murals and view the mural in high-resolution through virtual reality technology.
Wang remembers the moment he first stepped into the newly discovered tomb in 2001. It was inside a pear orchard, and not protected at all. As he walked along the passage to the burial chamber, he observed the murals were degraded and flaking. “It looked like the surface layers of the murals would disappear if you so
much as breathed on them. I was worried about their preservation, because I understood how precious and fragile they were,” he said.
It took two years to excavate and restore the tomb. Chang Yimin, who led the dig, said the roots of the pear trees had grown into the tomb and through some of the murals. It was a painstaking and laborious task to separate them. “The archaeologists had to use toothpicks to clean the surface as delicately as they could,” he told Newschina.
By the time Wang was appointed curator, the tomb had been restored, but it was still in danger of degradation, despite efforts to reinforce and stabilize the exposed murals. The hardest choice Wang faced was to decide whether to attempt to relocate the tomb or preserve the murals on site.
From the 1970s, discovered tomb murals were usually removed to museums. On-site preservation was not attempted in China until the early 1990s. Internationally, in-situ preservation of tomb murals remains a difficult issue.
As a supporter of on-site preservation, Wang said he believes that if wall paintings are removed from the original location, they become nothing more than a piece of art, but if they can be preserved on site, then as an integral part of the architectural ensemble they embody historical information.
Most of the murals in Xu’s tomb, from the dome, patio, tomb door and corridor to the coffin chamber, were intact with no groundwater erosion. Moreover, the soil composition of the wall under the paintings were found to be inappropriate for mural removal. After much discussion, cultural heritage authorities decided to leave the murals where they were.
Before building the museum structure, first the site was stabilized by restoring the original vegetation within 50 meters of the tomb site, then a drainage system was constructed, and damp proofing and ventilation installed. These measures mitigate the impact of external environmental changes on the microenvironment of the tomb.
The construction of the museum started in 2020 under the principles of minimum impact. Each stage was designed to ensure the safety of the cultural relic. In order to reduce vibration, the 139 pile foundations of 18 meters in depth were dug by hand rather than by machine. Inside, 59 sensors control the environment, enabling real-time monitoring.
The careful restoration means it is the only in-situ tomb mural museum in the country that allows visitors to appreciate
the appearance of a tomb just as it was unearthed. The methods used have become a prototype for the protection and use of archaeological sites in China. Today, visitors can witness the original appearance of the tomb through transparent glass walls and view the murals along the tomb passage as an integral part of the tomb. The experience is far removed from viewing murals in a museum, which are wholly detached from their origins.
High Tech Digitization
While visitors can be immersed in the Northern Qi Mural Museum, they cannot enter the tomb passage or chamber to view the murals close up. Now, technology can step in, bringing the experience up to date, as visitors can use VR headsets to view the murals in detail.
Wang said he thought about how VR could assist with the visitor experience when they started building the museum.
“Although it’s at Xu Xianxiu’s tomb site, we can’t allow visitors to go down inside the tomb, and we needed to address this,” Wang said. “VR technology thus provides the best solution for this issue.” Starting in 2018, Wang collected digital images of the tomb interior and relics to start an online museum of Xu’s tomb.
“We took these measures because of the instability of the environment of the tomb chamber, the murals and surroundings. My intention was to use stable technologies to solve these instabilities,” Wang said.
Emerging technologies provide many opportunities for museums, which include the development of virtual museums that can ensure the everlasting preservation of decaying cultural relics and embrace more audiences. Dunhuang Academy in Gansu Province has pioneered this approach, launching the “Digital Dunhuang” project in the late 1980s.
The aim is to ensure the preservation of the Mogao Grottoes, highly decorative caves containing Buddhist murals and sculptures, as well as scrolls and other artifacts, constructed from the 4th to the 14th century. As of mid-2024, Dunhuang Academy had completed digital data collection on 295 out of the 735 caves, image processing for 186 grottoes, and the 3D reconstruction of 145 painted sculptures and seven ruins, while delivering a panoramic tour program for 162 caves.
Dunhuang Academy has created a set of digital techniques and national standards on how to digitize immovable cultural relics. Ding Xiaohong, deputy director of the Institute of Cultural Relics Digitization at the Dunhuang Academy, told China News Service in June 2024 that generations of staff have been racing against time to collect information on murals and sculptures in the caves. The first “Digital Dunhuang” exhibition was held almost a decade ago, bringing these immovable relics to a much wider public. Since then, Dunhuang Academy has held over 30 “Digital Dunhuang” exhibitions around the world.
In 2022, the academy’s online platforms recorded about 400 million visits from 120 countries and regions, Du Juan, deputy director of the media center of Dunhuang Academy, told the Xinhua News Agency in July 2023. “Since ‘Digital Dunhuang’ was put online, people can access high-resolution images of every corner of the caves from all over the world,” Wang Wanfu, deputy director of the department of conservation research at Dunhuang Academy, told Xinhua in June 2024: “This has allowed culture to be part of everyone’s lives, which is the most satisfactory achievement we can get as cultural relic preservationists.”
Having pioneered digitization, the Dunhuang project is now one of many. The country’s 14th Five-year Plan (202125) highlighted measures such as increasing digitization of public museums and libraries to improve public cultural services. For example, Yungang Grottoes in Shanxi Province, which have similar Buddhist murals and statues to Mogao, have also been archived in digital 3D. In neighboring Shaanxi Province, tourists can enjoy a dynamic experience of the Terracotta Warriors in Xi’an through augmented reality technology. These projects are effective in preserving cultural relics for future generations, while at the same time making it more widely
available both at home and abroad.
International Collaboration
Besides upgrading preservation for artifacts and cultural relics, Chinese museums have sought cooperation and communication with overseas museums and archaeological organizations, holding exchange exhibitions and collaborating on research projects and joint archaeological research.
The Palace Museum in Beijing, also known as the Forbidden City, has built a platform for international cooperation to promote archaeology, cultural preservation and exhibitions to go global. In September 2023, an exhibition titled “Thriving for a Collaborative World: ‘Belt and Road’ Cooperation in Cultural Heritage and Archaeology” was held at the Palace Museum. The exhibition highlighted achievements in 44 collaborative archaeological projects in the last decade, involving 24 countries including China, Russia, Italy, Britain, the US, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia and the United Arab Emirates.
Archaeologists from Chinese museums and research institutions have assisted in a restoration of Angkor Ta Keo Temple in Cambodia, the preservation of historical and cultural relics in Khwarazm, Uzbekistan, and the restoration of the nine-story temple complex in Durbar Square, Kathmandu, Nepal after the devastating earthquake of 2015, as well as an eight-year excavation at the two port sites of Pattanam and Kollam (Quilon) in Kerala, southern India.
Xu Haifeng, director of the Institute of Archaeology of the Palace Museum, told weekly news magazine Outlook in September 2023 that Chinese archaeologists lived and ate together with local archaeologists in these countries while they investigated and excavated ancient remains. “We adopted and promoted the concepts, methods and means of Chinese archaeologists through profound cooperation with our counterparts in those nations,” Xu said.
The Palace Museum, according to Xu, has brought advanced scientific and archaeological equipment and sent technicians to local archaeological sites, as well as prepared information.
Referring to the collaboration with Indian archaeologists, Xu said they would send data back to the Palace Museum after collecting samples to compare with domestic databases.
“We could quickly analyze the age, origin, kiln, process and technology where the samples were collected, which impressed our Indian counterparts,” Xu said.
The same archaeological concepts and methods were applied to a project with the UAE in 2019. After the first joint excavation, the UAE decided to hand over excavation and research at another two archaeological sites, the ancient town of al-nudud and al-mataf in the Julfar protection area, to the Palace Museum.
Wang Xudong, current director of the Palace Museum, said the Palace Museum would continue pushing for its archaeological efforts to go global, and engage in more cooperative projects with other countries to promote exchanges and communication among civilizations.
Other than joining in international archaeological research, leading museums in China are involved in providing help with expertise and offering safe havens for endangered cultural properties from other countries.
Opening in early June, in partnership with the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas (ALIPH), the National Museum of China in Beijing has held an exhibition titled “Salvaged from the shadows, protecting cultural heritage,” featuring ALIPH’S work around the world.
Established in 2017 in Geneva, Switzerland, ALIPH is an international organization dedicated to the protection of cultural heritage in conflict areas. Through international cooperation, ALIPH has supported about 450 projects in at least 35 countries.
China was one of the founding members of ALIPH in 2017. National Museum Director Gao Zheng told Newschina the museum serves as one of the world’s three international safe havens that afford shelter to heritage in danger, with the other two being the Musée du Louvre Lens in France and the Swiss National Museum. The launch of ALIPH, according to Executive Director of ALIPH Valery Freland, allows partners to work together for the rehabilitation of artifacts which were damaged by war.
The National Museum, along with other Chinese archaeologists, has provided professional advice on heritage protection. Furthermore, the alliance has funded a lot of work to collect 3D digital imaging and data on important world heritage sites. Freland told the Global Times that ALIPH has a strong partnership with China. He expressed his hope to have more Chinese expertise within ALIPH and his eagerness to work with the Alliance for Cultural Heritage in Asia, an organization founded by China.
“During recent years, the National Museum has focused on deepening civilization exchange, communication and mutual learning, gradually establishing an international partnership network, and has effectively expanded the content and space for international cooperation,” wrote Zhu Xiaoyun, director of international cooperation at the National Museum in an article for Outlook magazine in February 2024.