Live Appreciation, Congratulations to Brother

Chapter 362 Blackwater City and Dunhuang (Update)

Halfway through the day's live broadcast, another old acquaintance came to Zhang Yang's live broadcast room, Mr. Cheng.

Zhang Yang was a little surprised to see him wearing a Bluetooth headset and in a bright palace-like building.

Which emperor's palace are you going to again?

According to the itinerary mentioned by Mr. Cheng in the group, he is basically re-walking the Silk Road.

Of course the kind that takes a plane.

Starting from Yanjing, we passed through Central Asia, Egypt, and ancient Greece along the way, and our final destination was the British Museum.

Whenever I encounter something good, I will look for Zhang Yang and Lianmai to take a look at it together.

This was Zhang Yang's own initiative. He felt that the viewers in the live broadcast room were quite curious about cultural relics from foreign countries.

But this time, for some reason, Mr. Cheng walked to Central Asia and suddenly returned to Russia.

"I am now in the Museum of Far Eastern Art on the third floor of the Hermitage Museum." Cheng Zongwen responded in a low voice.

"I'm not sure if it can be broadcast live here, so I can only pretend to record it. But I feel like the things here should be shown to the brothers in the live broadcast room."

Cheng Erye turned the camera and he was standing in front of the glass showcase.

In the display window, dozens of thirty to forty centimeter-tall bronze Buddha statues formed a circle.

On the raised platform in the center is a statue of Sakyamuni Buddha.

The real Ten Thousand Buddhas Chaozong.

[I’m sorry, so many Buddha statues? 】

[Tsarist Russia is making trouble with you. They really took it a lot in the late Qing Dynasty]

[Stop talking about it, all the cultural relics of Xixia are over there]

"This should be arranged according to the mandala." Zhang Yang explained to the audience in the live broadcast room, "The mandala is also called a mandala. During Buddhist practice, it is surrounded like this. It is said that it can resist the invasion of external demons."

"Most of the Buddha statues here are made of bronze from the third generation of the Qing Dynasty. The market price is only around 10,000 yuan or 10,000 yuan per piece. They are not valuable."

After Zhang Yang said it was worthless, the direction of the barrage immediately changed.

They all say that I don’t know what the goods are and I don’t even know how to rob them.

But Mr. Cheng's next behavior directly slapped Danmaku in the face.

After the scene changed, a small display window was filled with large and small clay sculptures of Buddha heads and several murals.

It looks very old at first glance, and the paint has peeled off a bit.

The Buddha head is actually okay, but the mural is simply a pain in the hearts of all Chinese people who like cultural relics.

Seeing the barrage painting [Dunhuang Murals], Zhang Yang explained aloud:

"Don't worry about the barrages of Dunhuang. There are many in the Winter Palace, but these are not enough."

"These are the murals from the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Cave. Most of them were painted by the Uighurs of the Gaochang Kingdom. Although they are also related to the Tang Dynasty, they are not so precious."

"How about this?" Mr. Cheng lowered his voice and asked Zhang Yang.

He then focused the camera on a golden pagoda, which was shining brightly under the light.

However, Zhang Yang’s evaluation was: “That’s it.”

"The cultural relics of Tibetan Buddhism in the Qing Dynasty are not very attractive. Most of them should have been stolen from the Qing royal family during the Yuanmingyuan period. The materials and craftsmanship are higher, but the value of the cultural relics alone is not as high as the Uighur murals just now. precious."

"Friend Bao, why don't you show us the cultural relics of Xixia? They are not found in China."

"What are the characteristics of Xixia?" Cheng Erye asked.

"As for the characteristics, let me think about it... Just look for the one that says [Earthed from the Blackwater City Ruins] on the sign."

Large museums, as long as they can indicate the location of the excavation, they will definitely indicate it clearly, even if it was unearthed in another country.

Many of the bronzes from the Shang Dynasty in the British Museum are clearly stated to be from the Yin Ruins.

This is academic rigor.

The tens of thousands of Xixia cultural relics collected in the Winter Palace, including more than 500 thangkas, were all unearthed from the Heishui City ruins.

Lao Maozi spent twenty years digging at the Heishui City ruins.

It is said on the Internet that if you want to have a glimpse of the Xixia Dynasty established by Li Yuanhao, you must go to the Winter Palace.

Can't be seen anywhere else.

At the beginning, when Mr. Cheng said that he was in the Far Eastern Museum on the third floor of the Hermitage, Zhang Yang immediately thought of this.

Hearing Zhang Yang's words, Mr. Cheng didn't stop and soon came to a Buddha statue. A strange Buddha statue with one body and two heads.

This is said to be the only two-headed Buddha in the world.

The two Buddha heads have different expressions, looking down to the left and right sides respectively, with full and kind facial expressions and a slight smile.

The Buddha body has four arms, two of which are clasped together in front of the chest, and the other two arms are drooping and extending to the left, right and below.

No matter from which angle you look at it, each Buddha head is perfectly integrated with the Buddha's body and arms to form a whole.

[Damn, there’s this kind of Buddha statue]

[Is this a Tibetan or a Chinese biography? 】

[This is so famous, famous all over the world]

[I remember it should be the only two-headed Buddha in the world, right? 】

"If you count the movable Buddha statue, this should be the only one."

The two-headed Buddha is a lesson that cannot be ignored when studying the culture of Buddhist statues. Zhang Yang studied it very seriously.

He introduced it very clearly to his treasure friends.

"But if you include the giant Buddhas carved in the grottoes, there are actually two-headed Buddhas from the Tang Dynasty in the Nanchang Grottoes in Bazhong, and there are also many in the Western Regions and Hexi Corridor."

"But those are stone sculptures after all, and they are indeed incomparable to the one in Blackwater City."

In addition to this two-headed Buddha, many other Buddha statues have been unearthed in Heishui City, most of which have a clear flavor of Tibetan Buddhism.

After all, Xixia and Tubo border on each other, and cultural exchanges between them were quite close at that time.

"No more, that's all from Blackwater City."

"that's it?"

Zhang Yang thought for a while, and he had calculated carefully just now, including all the Buddha heads, so he probably saw less than thirty Buddha statues in total.

Compared with the scale of the cultural relics unearthed in Blackwater City back then, it is not an exaggeration to say that this is a drop in the bucket.

The only thing that can see the Xixia characters are the labels of a few scriptures. However, more than 2 volumes of documents were transported at one time. It is said to be the third largest archaeological document discovery in China after the oracle bones of the Yin Ruins and the Dunhuang posthumous documents...

What do you mean, don’t show it? !

"There are many more thangkas over there, do you want to see them?"

Mr. Cheng's camera swept across a long wall, filled with display windows with thangkas hanging on them.

Tibetan lovers are ecstatic.

But Zhang Yang was not very interested. So many thangkas were nothing more than paintings by believers. They were nothing unusual in a museum.

"Friend Bao, how about taking a look at that? Just that pair of sculptures."

What Zhang Yang was talking about was a pair of clay sculptures of guardian beasts.

At first glance, with the erect ears, I thought it was a coyote.

Zhang Yang guessed it might be something like a tomb beast.

But when I got closer and took a closer look, I realized that this thing was actually a Suanni.

The fifth among the nine sons of the Dragon King, it is the one who often smokes and smokes on the incense burner. According to legend, it was adopted as a mount by the Buddha and became a guardian beast.

【What a majesty】

[Feels like a tomb beast]

[It feels a bit like the stone lions of wealthy families in the past]

[Is this Suanni? 】

"Yes, this is Suanni." Zhang Yang answered the barrage's question, "It comes from the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang. It should have been stolen by Oldenburg."

"Hey, Master Zhang, do you even know who stole it?" Mr. Cheng was a little surprised by Zhang Yang's answer.

He clearly didn't take pictures of the cultural relics' explanation boards.

"I knew it when I saw the Dunhuang murals next to it."

"The Mogao Grottoes themselves are Buddhist caves, so there will naturally be Buddhist statues, sculptures and other cultural relics inside. Basically all of these were taken away by Oldenburg."

"It was because he moved all the sculptures away that Harvard's archaeological team was so angry that they even ignored the murals on the wall..."

(End of this chapter)