According to the estimation of cultural relics experts, among more than 2,000 large museums in 47 countries around the world, as many as 6,543,800 pieces of historical relics have been lost in China. In addition, at least millions of China historical relics are scattered among people all over the world.
Some of these precious historical relics in China were plundered by foreign powers in the war, some were stolen by some foreign explorers in the name of scientific investigation, and some were smuggled out of the country by grave robbers or cultural relics dealers in collusion.
The massive loss of China's historical relics mainly started when the great powers' talons extended to China after the outbreak of the Opium War. 18601kloc-0/8, Eight-Nation Alliance burned the Yuanmingyuan, which was the biggest disaster in the history of cultural relics in China. According to records, Yuanmingyuan has more than 65,438+10,000 precious historical relics such as pure gold, silver plating, jade carvings and bronze Buddha statues collected by emperors since Kangxi. Victor hugo, a French writer, once said, "Even if all the treasures of Notre Dame are added together, it can't compare with this magnificent Oriental Museum." However, Yuanmingyuan, an art treasure house, was completely looted in that unprecedented catastrophe, and a large number of rare treasures, including Yongle Dadian and the earliest Collection of Women's History of Gu Kaizhi in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, were all lost.
At present, there are more than 23,000 China historical relics in the British Museum, most of which are rare treasures. Among them, there are hundreds of ancient paintings in China. The Yongle Grand Ceremony, the Historical Map of Women, the earliest Paramita Buddhist Sutra in China and Dunhuang scrolls stolen by the so-called scientific investigation team are all collected here.
The China Pavilion, the middle building of the British Museum, was rebuilt on 1990 with a donation of 2 million pounds (about 27 million RMB) from Sir Sir Joseph Edward Hotung, a Hong Kong businessman. The purpose of the renovation is to promote the protection and display of historical relics in China. The British Museum itself has always agreed with this. China's precious cultural relics in the British Museum, except a few donated by enthusiastic people, were mostly looted by the British Empire at its peak.
At the same time, the number of China historical relics lost to Japan is also huge, and the types of cultural relics are very complete and rich. It is understood that there are more than 1000 public and private museums in Japan, almost all of which contain China's historical relics, with a total of about 700,000 to 800,000 pieces. Most of them were plundered and stolen by the Japanese in the war of aggression against China.
The China Pavilion in the French Fontainebleau Palace has a collection of more than 30,000 famous China paintings, jade jewelry, porcelain, incense burners, chimes, precious stones and silverware. Ji Mei Museum, a branch of the Louvre National Museum, has more than 30,000 pieces of China historical relics.
San Francisco Asian Art Museum is a museum in the United States that specializes in collecting China's historical relics. In the ceramics department of the museum, there are more than 2,000 pieces of China precious ceramics and other precious cultural relics. The Jade Department of this museum has more than 1200 pieces of ancient jade from China, and it is the museum with the richest collection of China jade in the world. In addition, the Bronze Department of the museum also collects about 800 ancient Chinese bronzes.
The loss of local chronicles and historical classics in China is also quite serious. It is understood that the Library of Congress has collected more than 4,000 local chronicles, 3,000 rare books and 2,000 private genealogies compiled and edited by China.
Among the nearly 30,000 pieces of Oracle bones lost overseas in China, Japan has collected 6,543,800+3,000 pieces, which is the country with the largest collection of China Oracle bones and Oracle documents in the world. There are only 20,000 Dunhuang suicide notes in China, accounting for only about 30%, while there are more than 6,000 in the National Library of Paris, and as many as1.20,000 in Russian St. Petersburg.