Tsinghua University Art Museum

Content summary.

The discussion of pre-Qin gold and silverware under such a topic in this lecture means that the early gold and silverware was ignored by traditional literature, at least not the mainstream discourse, and our understanding of pre-Qin gold and silverware today depends almost entirely on archaeological discoveries.

From the archaeological discoveries, it can be seen that there are no technical obstacles to the production of gold and silverware in the Bronze Age.

Or it can be said that the popularity of gold and silverware does not depend on technology, but more on the trend of metal technology and contemporary ideas.

One of the new processes in the transition period of bronze casting is metal mosaic, which rose in the middle and late Spring and Autumn period and reached its peak in the warring States period.

The erroneous inlay of gold and silver was followed by the erroneous inlay of red copper and developed rapidly.

The prosperity of gold and silverware production is just at this time, it not only keeps pace with the wrong embedding technology, but also nearly synchronizes with the development of iron smelting technology.

A large number of gold and silver wares and wrong gold and silver iron wares unearthed in the late warring States cemetery in Zhangjiachuan Majiayuan, Tianshui, Gansu Province, are important examples for us to facilitate the inspection of pre-Qin gold and silverware, which not only focuses on most of the categories, patterns, decorative means and production techniques that appeared before, but also has a considerable number.

With regard to the production technology and technical sources, there has been a book "Technical Research on Metal products in Majiayuan Cemetery: also on Cultural Exchange in Northwest China during the warring States period". Several related issues such as wrong gold and silver iron wares and decorative patterns are discussed.

This issue is a special lecture on the special exhibition "the boundless adornment of utensils-the Afghan National Treasure of the Convergence of Eastern and Western Civilizations" on display in our museum.