How to recover lost cultural relics

Experts estimate that among more than 2,000 museums in 47 countries, there are about 654.38+67 million pieces of cultural relics lost in China. Around the world, there are at least millions of cultural relics in China. Some were plundered in the war, some were stolen by foreign explorers in the name of scientific investigation, and some were smuggled out by grave robbers or cultural relics dealers.

The loss of cultural relics in China began after the Opium War when foreign powers invaded China. 18601kloc-0/8, Eight-Nation Alliance burned the Yuanmingyuan, which was the biggest disaster in the history of cultural relics in China. Since Kangxi, emperors have collected more than 654.38 million statues made of pure gold, silver, jade and copper in Yuanmingyuan. French writer Hugo said: "Even if all the treasures of Notre Dame in China are added together, it can't compare with this magnificent Oriental Museum." However, this art treasure house was completely ransacked, and a large number of rare treasures, including Yongle Dadian in the Eastern Jin Dynasty and Gu Kaizhi's Prose on Women's History, were all lost.

At present, the British Museum has more than 23,000 pieces of China cultural relics, and there are mountains of treasures. There are hundreds of ancient paintings in China. The Yongle Grand Ceremony, A Historical Map of Women, The First Paramita Buddhist Sutra in China and Dunhuang scrolls stolen by the "investigation team" are all collected here. The China Pavilion here 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 renovation is to facilitate the protection and display of cultural relics. The British Museum has always been regarded as the museum with the most and best China cultural relics outside China. In fact, some collections in the British Museum are even better than those in China, such as Dunhuang scrolls and classics (which have been moved out with the British Library).

Most of the cultural relics in the British Museum were looted by the British Empire in its heyday, and only a few were donated by enthusiastic people. In recent years, many countries have made representations to the British government, hoping to get their exhibits back. Greece is still working hard to return the Elgin Marbles in the ancient Parthenon.

The number and variety of China cultural relics lost to Japan are also very large. Almost all the more than 65,438+0,000 public and private museums in Japan have collections of China cultural relics, the number of which is about several hundred thousand. The China Pavilion in the French Fontainebleau Palace has a collection of more than 30,000 famous China paintings, jade articles, porcelain, incense burners, chimes, precious stones and gold and silver wares. Ji Mei Museum is a branch of the Louvre National Museum, with more than 30,000 pieces of China cultural relics. San Francisco Asian Art Museum is a museum that mainly collects China cultural relics. Among them, there are more than 2,000 pieces of ceramics, which began in the Neolithic Age and ended in the Qing Dynasty. The Jade Department has more than 1200 pieces, which is the museum with the richest collection of China jade in the world. There are about 800 pieces in the bronze department.

As far as local chronicles and ancient books are concerned, the United States has the most, and the Library of Congress has more than 4,000 kinds of local chronicles. There are more than 3,000 rare books and 2,000 genealogies in the United States. As far as Oracle bone fragments are concerned, Japan has the largest collection. Among the nearly 30,000 pieces of Oracle bone fragments lost overseas in China, there are nearly1.3,000 pieces in Japan. As far as Dunhuang treasures are concerned, there are only more than 20,000 Dunhuang suicide notes in China, accounting for only 30%, and there are 6,000 in the French National Library. There are 6.5438+0.2 million pieces of Asian ethnic studies in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Faced with so many ancient art treasures in China, we are proud of the long history and outstanding creativity of the Chinese nation, and at the same time feel sorry and ashamed that so many priceless treasures have fled overseas.

Cultural relics smuggling is rampant.

Since the 1990s, the price of illegal cultural relics has been rising, second only to the huge profits of drug and arms smuggling, which has led to increasingly rampant cultural relics crimes around the world. According to the information provided by National Cultural Heritage Administration, in Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi and other major cultural relics provinces, large-scale grave robbery, illegal excavation and reselling of cultural relics have been repeatedly prohibited, and even formed industries in some places. In just a few months, more than 0/000 ancient tombs in a certain place in Qinghai were destroyed, and more than 5,000 Neolithic Yangshao cultural treasures were looted. According to incomplete statistics, in recent years, there have been more than 654.38+million cases of excavating ancient tombs all over the country, and more than 200,000 ancient tombs have been destroyed. There is a map of China in the residence of the suspect who sells China cultural relics in Britain, and some important archaeological sites are marked, which is similar to a "battle map". These mercenary cultural relics dealers are the source of cultural relics displacement in China and the culprit of cultural relics crimes. According to the statistics of the General Administration of Customs, from 199 1 to 2000, the national customs seized more than 654.38 million smuggled cultural relics. 1in may 1997, Tianjin customs seized a case of smuggling cultural relics in a container containing more than 5,000 cultural relics. In August, 2003, Shenzhen Customs announced that it had successfully cracked a smuggling gang that smuggled precious national fossils, and intercepted 2 165 national restricted cultural relics such as national first-class cultural relics. This case is the largest smuggling case of paleontology seized by the customs system since the founding of the People's Republic of China. The number, grade and variety of these smuggled fossils are rare in China.

The loss of cultural relics caused by poor management or self-stealing has become the second largest source of cultural relics smuggling market in China, second only to the excavation of ancient tombs. On June 8, 2003, 158 cultural relics were stolen from the heavily guarded cultural relics warehouse in Chengde, Hebei Province, which is famous for its summer resort. Several of them are national first-class protected cultural relics that can be called China's national treasures, and the rest are national second-class or third-class protected cultural relics. The case involves a large number of high-grade cultural relics. According to the insiders, this is probably the first major case in the field of culture and art since the founding of New China. On June 9, 2003, Chen Dikuan, deputy director of the Cultural Relics Management Office of Jingdezhen Ceramic History Museum in Jiangxi Province, was arrested by the local procuratorate on suspicion of embezzling cultural relics, and then two staff members were criminally detained. More than 5,000 cultural relics in this museum have disappeared, and no one has reported it, and the competent authorities have not thoroughly investigated it. On the evening of June 27th, 2003, 165438+ CCTV Focus Interview interviewed Jingdezhen Ceramic History Museum in Jiangxi Province. It is not surprising that a museum that has been in operation for nearly 20 years can't even produce a complete account, and a large number of cultural relics are lost. Prior to this, there were also reports that the cultural relics of the Forbidden City were stolen and lost, and the reason for the loss was also "family thieves".

For a long time, the shortage of funds and manpower is a common phenomenon in China Museum of Cultural Relics. The Shanghai Museum, which has the largest passenger flow in China, still has an annual ticket income of 20 million yuan, which is not enough for self-sufficiency. Some museums have to shoulder the heavy responsibility of guarding tombs because they don't have personnel supplement and capital injection to explore new cultural relics. In recent years, national cultural heritages such as Zhoukoudian site are in trouble due to lack of maintenance and protection funds. The huge shortage of cultural relics protection funds is a common phenomenon in China. At present, many open cultural relics protection units in China have more or less income, and some units, such as the Terracotta Warriors Museum, earn more than 100 million tickets. Most of these revenues are turned over to local governments, and it is difficult to return the paid part to the cultural relics department. As a matter of fact, it is difficult to earmark funds.

It is difficult to "sink treasure" and "keep business" under the sea.

On March 1 day, 2004, 1700 pieces of exquisite China porcelain were auctioned at Christie's auction house in Melbourne, Australia. These Zhangzhou porcelains were produced in the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty and were discovered by Vietnamese fishermen on an ancient China ship in the South China Sea a few years ago. It is not the first time that such a large number of China undersea cultural relics have been auctioned in batches overseas. There should be more than 2,000 ancient shipwrecks in the South China Sea of China. Due to the large loading capacity of the ship, the saying of "one ship with ten tombs" has formed in the cultural relics market. Usually, an ordinary medium-sized merchant ship can carry more than 6,543,800 pieces of porcelain.

As for the ownership of the sunken treasure on the seabed, according to the Regulations on the Protection and Management of Underwater Cultural Relics in People's Republic of China (PRC) formulated by National Cultural Heritage Administration, the cultural relics left in China's territorial waters and other sea areas under China's jurisdiction according to Chinese laws, no matter whether they come from inside or outside China, belong to China. In order to obtain China cultural relics and evade legal sanctions, maritime treasure thieves resorted to various tricks. For example, treasure hunters can salvage the seabed after obtaining permission from the National Museum of the Philippines, and only need to share the salvaged treasure with them as agreed. However, some treasure hunters secretly fished in China waters under the cover of licenses from these countries. Foreign treasure thieves regard the latitude and longitude of salvaging the sunken ship as top secret and never disclose it to the outside world, so that the outside world can't find evidence of its illegality. There is a provision in the international convention that "unclaimed sunken ships are allowed to be auctioned", so they took advantage of the loopholes in international law to hide the cultural relics salvaged from China waters for a period of time, and then sent them to the auction house for auction after the confirmation period stipulated by law.

Due to financial and technical constraints, China is currently unable to salvage the sunken ship of China in the South China Sea. Despite the large number of sunken ships, underwater salvage is tantamount to a gamble because it is distributed in the vast ocean. It takes tens of millions of yuan to salvage a deep sunken ship. China once organized a large-scale salvage project for a Japanese modern sunken ship "Apomaru". Results The initial expenditure budget was as high as 1? 200 million yuan.

The real value of a sunken ship at the bottom of the sea lies not in the value of the cultural relics it carries, but in the most important humanistic value. In recent years, the serious loss of underwater cultural relics in China has attracted the attention of relevant departments in China. At present, China is revising the Regulations on the Protection and Management of Underwater Cultural Relics in People's Republic of China (PRC) in order to take more effective measures to curb this phenomenon.

The return of cultural relics costs nothing.

China's comprehensive strength is increasing day by day, people's life has begun to step into a well-off society, and many precious cultural relics lost overseas have returned one after another. This was originally my own thing, but it cost me a lot of money to get it back. In September 2003, Eric, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Shun Tak Group in Hong Kong, spent 7 million yuan to buy the bronze pig head of Qianlong Royal Flower in Yuanmingyuan and presented it to Poly Art Museum in the name of a property development project. In April, 2003, the best four volumes of the calligraphy national treasure "Chun Hua Ge Tie", which attracted wide attention at home and abroad, were bought back from American collectors by Shanghai Museum for $4.5 million. It is said that this is still a big bargain. Previously, American Metropolitan Museum, Belgian Museum, Japanese collectors and some auction houses in China all wanted this stamp, and their bids were not lower than this figure. The price offered by the Japanese is $65,438 +0 1 10,000. The four volumes of Spring Pavilion Post appeared in Shanghai in the 1940s, and then flowed out of China. In the 1980s, it was taken by an American Jew, An Siyuan, at an art auction in Hong Kong for $300,000.

On June 6th, 2002, 65438+February 6th, 2002, Mi Fei, a great calligrapher of the Northern Song Dynasty, collected Yan from overseas by Zhongmao Shengjia International Auction Co., Ltd. According to the relevant provisions of the Law on the Protection of Cultural Relics, National Cultural Heritage Administration designated Yan as a directional auction. At the auction on February 6, 65438, China Cultural Relics Information Consulting Center participated in the bidding according to law, and finally bought back a piece of Yan for 29.99 million yuan, which was taken over by the center and stored in the Palace Museum for protection. This is the first batch of treasures obtained after the state set up key precious cultural relics to collect special funds. In recent years, the Forbidden City has spent a lot of money on the cultural relics auction market: ten poems180,000 yuan, Qing Shitao's "Scream" and scroll paintings more than 4 million yuan, Shen Zhou's imitation of Huang Fuchun more than 6 million yuan, and the master's ode to 22 million yuan.

In recent years, about 30% of the auctions of major domestic auction companies have returned overseas. Seeing that Chinese people are scrambling to buy back national treasures, we are grateful from time to time, but we are not happy at all. If these prices are followed, tens of millions of lost cultural relics will be recovered in the future. It is unrealistic to redeem one by one with huge amounts of money. Because of the shortage of funds, many national treasures have been bought by others, and we can't afford such a big price. On July 12, 2003, the imperial seal handed down by Kangxi was taken away by overseas mysterious people for 6 million yuan. Huachen Company collected this national treasure from an overseas collector when collecting lots in the spring of 2003. This jade seal is called "the treasure of Kangxi's imperial pen", and it has 9? 5 cm square, it is the largest in size and volume in Kangxi Imperial Seal, and it was lost overseas when Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing. Kangxi * * * has 120 seals, most of which were lost in this national disaster. The comprehensive collection value of the jade seal itself is different from the general cultural relics. It has high historical, political, academic and artistic values.

Since 2002, the state finance has set up a "special fund for the collection of national cultural relics" for the first time, with a general arrangement of 50 million yuan. You can only choose, "buy back one thing and count it as one thing" and "fill the blank of cultural relics" is the key. Most of them can only be bought by others. There are three "Big Reading Pictures" by Gan Long. The first one is in the Forbidden City. Some time ago, the second piece was auctioned. The Forbidden City wanted to buy it for 5 million yuan, and the reserve price was already 8 million yuan. In the end, it won more than 20 million yuan. The map of Kangxi's southern tour is *** 12. There are several volumes in the Forbidden City, and the seller didn't buy them at a high price. Song Huizong's sketches of rare birds, the psychological price of the Forbidden City is 6.5438+million yuan. When I called 23 million, I didn't dare to raise my hand, so I had to watch foreign buyers win it. Later, I entered the American Museum, and I don't think I will ever get out again.

Need to strengthen legislative protection.

There are few precedents for illegal redemption of cultural relics in countries around the world. The usual practice is to pursue it persistently according to the principles of law and morality. In order to safeguard national sovereignty and national dignity, even tough diplomatic means are used. On June 7, 2003, the United States returned six smuggled cultural relics to China, which was a result of China's pursuit of cultural relics through legal procedures. In March 2000, the relief of China's buried cultural relic "Warrior" appeared at Christie's auction house in new york. Thanks to the joint efforts of relevant departments of China and the United States, the auction was successfully stopped, and finally the cultural relic was confiscated as state property according to judicial procedures and returned to the China government free of charge. The success of chasing the relief statue of the warrior has opened the cooperation between the Chinese and American governments in cracking down on illegal export of cultural property and returning stolen cultural relics. Another important way to pursue cultural relics is to rely on Interpol to help countries recover stolen cultural relics. At present, the main legal basis for us to pursue cultural relics is the International Convention on the Return of Lost Cultural Relics. But there is a problem that the return of cultural relics will be implemented after the entry into force of the convention, not retroactively. Of course, international conventions have not affirmed the legality of illegally lost cultural relics in the past.

It is an arduous task for the government of China to return the cultural relics plundered by imperialist powers to the motherland for free, and it is also the ardent expectation of the people of China. The premise of the return of national treasure is to safeguard the dignity of the country and the nation. According to international conventions, it is indisputable that it belongs to the people of China. If it is redeemed at a high price, it will really hurt the face and self-esteem of the people in China and the national dignity of the people in China. However, on June 9, 2002, 18 European and American museums, including the British Museum, the Louvre Museum in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, jointly issued the Statement on the Importance and Value of the Universal Museum, expressing their opposition to the return of works of art, including cultural relics and works of art acquired by looting and other improper means during the imperialist war of aggression. This is in conflict with the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. According to the regulations, any cultural relics looted or lost due to the war should be returned without time limit. The term "unlimited by time" here means that no matter when the war occurs, it can be demanded to be returned at any time. The government of China has repeatedly stated that it will never give up the pursuit of stolen and illegally exported cultural relics.

In order to crack down on the smuggling of cultural relics, China implements a permit system for cultural relics to leave the country. This is a kind of international cultural relics exit management system. It is illegal to take cultural relics out of the country in any way without the approval of China's cultural relics exit appraisal agency. If cultural relics are smuggled out of the country, they will be investigated by law. China has also made a series of clear regulations on prohibiting illegal excavation, illegal trading of cultural relics and cracking down on smuggling of cultural relics. If these regulations are strictly implemented, the damage to cultural heritage will be greatly changed. In view of the rampant phenomenon of international cultural relics smuggling, some cultural officials in Asia and Europe have called for the formulation of an international convention to combat cultural relics smuggling and prevent the loss of cultural heritage. At present, many countries have relevant laws and regulations on cultural relics smuggling, but the international community needs a more detailed, feasible and legally binding international convention to ensure that people will not plunder the cultural heritage of other countries, and at the same time ensure that the looted cultural heritage can return to its original country.