Tsinghua University Art Museum

The over 230 Afghan treasures showcased in this exhibition are divided into units according to the four archaeological excavation sites of Tepe Fullol, the ancient city ruins of Ai Khanoum, Tillya Tepe, and the ancient city ruins of Begram, respectively. Their exhibition is further differentiated according to the four periods of the Bronze Age, the age of Hellenism, the period between the invasion of the Yuezhi and the establishment of the Kushan Empire, and the age of the Kushan Empire, respectively. The invaluable cultural heritage of these four historical periods attests to the multicultural confluence of and communication between ancient civilizations. The exhibits were all unearthed prior to the 1979 invasion of the Soviet Union into Afghanistan, and because they were kept hidden in the secret vaults of the Afghanistan Central Bank during the time of war, they were able to survive, and were uncovered again in 2003. Since October 2006, more than twenty museums in France, Italy, the Netherlands, the United States, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and other countries have successively exhibited these treasures in turn. Since March 2017, their traveling exhibition has been touring China. From April to June 2019, the treasures are exhibited at Tsinghua University Art Museum under the theme “Utensils and Ornaments Endlessly Fine.” This theme is taken from the Chinese classical “Tale of King Mu, Son of Heaven,” in which the travels of King Mu of Zhou (ca. 1054–949 BCE) towards the west are recorded. During his travels, he met upon Xiwangmu, the Queen Mother of the West, and further came face to face with rare and unusual western treasures––describing these as “utensils and ornaments endlessly fine.”