Talk:List of Chinese cultural relics forbidden to be exhibited abroad

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Weird... I'm the first one to be here.... Brian Zhao 01:17, 22 September 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by YOPbottle (talk • contribs)

Why aren't they allowed to go out of China?

It can't be because they are too frail, as the ban is only on being exhibited, so why the ban? Markb (talk) 06:53, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

We can only speculate, which isn't allowed on Wikipedia, so the article does not attempt to answer this question; but most of the objects are unique items that have a particular cultural, historical, political or artistic significance, e.g. the biggest ding, the earliest book printed with movable type, earliest object with the word "China" 中国, an early piece of silk from Xinjiang inscribed with the word "China" 中国, a pair of platform sandals (屐) that prove that this form of footwear was invented in China not Japan, etc. etc. Still, the list does seem fairly random. BabelStone (talk) 07:56, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

The article SPECULATES that everything china says about them is factual. 2604:3D09:D78:1000:8F83:FBCB:F8BF:F963 (talk) 14:50, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Your question is valid. I came to this discussion board with a similar question. This isn't some "mystery of the ages" and so we should do more than "only speculate." If someone knows, please update and if someone from China reads this and knows but doesn't have a reference please post here and provide some additional info. I also don't see them as random. These are some of the earliest artifacts of Proto-Chinese culture. Westerners have a stereotypical image of a monolithic China with the "Chinese" culture going back thousands and thousands of years. This really isn't true. People lived there for a long time but the Chinese culture that you would begin to recognize actually starts in the first few centuries BC and early AD time period, essentially the period of the Ancient Romans in Western civilization. If you include the Ancient Greeks as part of the Western continuum which most do and, definitely, if you include the Ancient Hebrews (which spiritually they are linked to Western Civilization), then Western civilization in many respects is older than Chinese culture. So many of these artifacts represent the "time before time" to the Chinese people, the Garden of Eden, Noah's Ark, Ark of the Covenant, etc. Herein lies the probably reason- China is a very ethnocentric nation that is moderately xenophobic. If you were this way would you allow "outsiders" to have any level of physical control over them? Think about Jews with Torah scrolls, Christians with the Tabernacle. There are many cultural artifacts from a variety of cultures that are too "sacred" to be handled by outsiders or be placed in an outside land. So I think is the probable reason why there aren't allowed out of China. Naturally, this is all speculation of course but is consistent with a mild understanding of Chinese culture. If anyone knows for sure please help to improve this article!BinaryLust (talk) 16:15, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

To any future readers:

Short story is heritage. Our civilization is very young, and we are attracted to other civilizations with long and rich heritages. China, which has thrived with little interruption for about 2,000 years, does not suffer from dim memories and societal collapse. Classical Chinese literature and culture (from Tang and Song eras) remains vibrant and alive. China instead suffers from opportunists (invaders, adventures, etc). In a similar vein, opportunists were attracted to the thriving Roman and Byzantine cultures (Ostrogoths and Ottomans, respectively), and we are well aware of the results of that. Up until the late 19th century, "barbarian" was still the Chinese term used for the British in official communications, until one of the Unequal Treaties prohibited its use. Not to say that us Westerners are barbarians, but we are a very young, lucky, and opportunistic civilization.

With so little of our own heritage, compared to the continuity of Egyptian, Roman, Hellenistic, Persian, Islamic, and Chinese civilizations, we are strongly attracted to artifacts from these prosperous cultures (Cyrus Cylinder, Rosetta Stone, Nestorian stele, etc). For example, the Nestorian stele, which appears on this list, is an artifact from the early Christian era of which we had only dim memories. It drew a lot of interest due to its 150 years of records of these Christian communities.

So, we tried to do what we usually did with heritage-rich civilizations in the 19th century: strip them of their artifacts and send them to the British Museum for glorious display, or other "suitable" locations. Problem was China is far from dead--that was their artifact! Local authorities intervened and were gracious enough to produce an exquisite copy of the stele, out of respect for Europe's Christian heritage, and deliver it to the would-be plunderer. So far the British Museum has managed to hold onto the magnificent Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon's marble sculptures, and the Cyrus Cylinder; and puts forth various arguments to rationalize why Greeks, Egyptians, and Persians should not have control over their own heritage or the physical integrity of their monuments. This continues into the 21st century: the United States court system, using a fairly bizarre and political stratagem, is working on seizing the Persian Fortification Archives (thousands of clay records from the administration of the first Persian Empire, 2,500 years old) that were loaned to the US under the condition that they would be returned to the National Museum of Iran. One of my own family members even has war trophies from Iraq, ancient coins and jeweled swords . . .

"You'd have to imagine how we would feel if we loaned the Liberty Bell to Russia and a Russian court put it up for auction."

--Gil Stein, Director of the Oriental Studies Institute at the University of Chicago

China is not playing this game--they are not letting another Diamond Sutra get smuggled out. If Westerners want to see these artifacts, they need to either come to China or be content with copies. We should respect that. Chinese people don't have some kind of cult around this stuff, they're not being xenophobic, and they're not boasting about Chinese supremacy. Their intent is to safeguard this heritage and continue producing more for a very long time. EmoryHubbard (talk) 18:42, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

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Are ALL of these actually ancient?

Or is it entirely probable that some are fake, since scientific examination is artificially limited? 2604:3D09:D78:1000:8F83:FBCB:F8BF:F963 (talk) 14:49, 7 November 2023 (UTC)