Following hard on the footsteps of Harmony and Integrity: The Yongzheng Emperor and His Times (雍正 ─ 清世宗文物大展), a second major exhibition mounted through a collaboration with China has arrived at the National Palace Museum (國立故宮博物院). This show, with 115 artifacts, more than half of which are classified as items of the first grade, is if anything a more splendid achievement, despite being from an area outside mainstream Chinese history.
Gold and Glory: The Wonders of Khitan From the Inner Mongolian Museum Collection (黃金旺族:內蒙古博物院大遼文物展) presents artifacts from the nomadic Khitans who harried the borders of northern China for many centuries, established the Liao Dynasty (遼朝, 907 to 1125), and subsequently virtually disappeared from the historical record, probably subsumed by the rise of a unified Mongol army under Genghis Khan and his successors.
Curator Lin Tien-jen (林天人) said the quality of the exhibits is unprecedented. Indeed, the high proportion of first-grade national treasures included in the show led to last-minute fears that the exhibition would not open. Permission for the export of the treasures was granted at the eleventh hour. While museum managers can exult in this administrative triumph (the exhibition sets a record for the number of items of the first grade to be shown in Taiwan), the general public can delight in a most exciting exhibition of artifacts that sheds light on a little-known area of the ancient Chinese world.
This is not the first time that the museum has put on an exhibition related to China’s northern neighbors, but it is by far the most detailed and intimate portrait of a hybrid culture that was created by the nomadic peoples who inhabited the vast regions between the eastern boundaries of Europe and China’s western border. “Originally, we had not decided to focus on the Khitans,” Lin said, “but in planning this exhibition we discovered that the Khitan culture was much more sophisticated than we originally thought. They were enormously open to foreign influences — from Central Asia, the northern steppe, the kingdom of Goryeo (the Korean peninsula) and also northern China — and while they absorbed a lot, they didn’t lose their own cultural identity. This openness distinguished them from many other steppe nomads and may be the reason that they could maintain a substantial empire for so long.”
The importance of the Khitans is emphasized in the manner that the name of these steppe nomads entered the English language as the word “Cathay,” which was once widely used to refer to China.
The first thing one notices about the exhibition is the abundance of gold and silver, favorite materials for the Khitans, so much so that, according to Rex Chou (周維強), an assistant curator for the show, a moratorium was placed on the use of gold for grave goods by the Liao authorities.
Items include intricately worked items for daily use, from silver-embossed saddles to a silver and jade awl-like tool that was carried by Khitan noblemen to give the coup de grace when hunting. The actual items are brought to life in prints of frescoes, also from the tombs, that depict how these items were worn or used. “The general impression that these nomads lived rough is quite misleading. At least among the nobility, enormous care is taken over personal adornment, and also in the quality of the utensils used,” Chou said.
Items such as a silver spittoon with intricate designs of beaten gold, along with frescoes showing a servant holding this vessel within easy spitting distance of his master, indicate that a habit that the current Chinese authorities are trying to stamp out was practiced by Khitan nobles as a matter of pride. Others, such as a silver box with lions (an animal not found in northern China), or drinking vessels of distinctly Middle Eastern design, show the range of the Khitans’ reach. There are many fascinating hybrid objects, such as a gold vase with pictures of famous stories of filial piety etched on its surface or the Capricorn-shaped vessel (with the head of a dragon rather than a ram) made from Tang-style three-color glaze. The Khitans were clearly very much at home with making use of whatever took their fancy. Not all the items would have been made by the Khitans themselves, with some obtained through trade or made by craftsman taken captive during the Khitans’ many military excursions.
A particular feature of Gold and Glory is the relatively small
number of texts on show. For the
non-specialist, this is something of a boon, as the majority of items on display are attractive to look at, and can be enjoyed without having to read the fine print. The reason for this is that very little textual material from the Khitans has survived. Chou said that all materials in the Khitan language had been compiled into not more than a couple of volumes. This is very much a culture reflected through its material goods, and something of the delight that these people must have taken in acquisition comes through in the show.
The exhibition is divided by theme, with one section dealing with daily life on the steppe, another on burial customs, a third religious practices (largely Buddhist, but with a strong injection of animist and shamanistic practices). A further three sections deal specifically with finds from three royal tombs: the tomb of the Liao Princess of Chen (1001 to 1018); the tomb of Yelu Yuzhi (890 to 941), the cousin to the Liao Dynasty’s founder, and another tomb tentatively ascribed to Princess Yuludugu (? to 914), the founder’s sister.
Objects such as the death mask and crown of the Princess of Chen are remarkable, part of a panoply of gold and silver that covered the body from head to toe. Photos show the body as it was found in the tomb, with all its precious items, many of them on display in the exhibition, worn as they might have been in life. This tomb, first excavated in 1985, had escaped the attention of grave robbers and presents a remarkably full picture of the princess and all her finery.
The story of the Liao Dynasty and the Khitan people might be a relatively obscure chapter in history, especially given their subsequent disappearance from the world stage, but the tale told by Gold and Glory of a people who lived on a periphery of great civilizations, embodies the ebb and flow of ideas that helped shape the world we know.
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