Exhibition: The Dawning East

The Dawning East -Collections from the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States Periods

Exhibition Period: From 29th December, 2017 to 28th March, 2018

Introduction

240 pieces of precious cultural relics from 30 cultural institutions and museums nationwide are collected for this exhibition to help the visitors get a deeper understanding of the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States Period which was a time of great historic transformations from a grand narrative perspective. The Spring and Autumn and Warring States Period (770 to 221 BC) spanning over 500 years, played a vital role in Chinese history when profound changes and turbulences mixed up with great advances and integration. Despite complicated historic lines during the period, the exhibition, by making painstaking and scrupulous research on the historical records, decided to tell what happened in the east from political, economic and cultural aspects. The period was also called by the famous German scholar Karl Jaspers as the “Axial Age” of human civilization.

Bronze tally inlaid with gold

In 323 BC, the King Huai of Chu State awarded the tallies, a pass for land and water transport, to his son Qi. These tallies were divided into tallies for ship and ones for carriage, with each person holding a half to match another half to get the permission. There are two pieces of tallies for ship with a gold inscription of 164 characters and three pieces of tallies for carriage with a gold inscription of 148 characters.

Gold wine cup

Gold wine cup is the largest and heaviest gold ware in the Pre-Qin Period that the world has ever seen, highlighting the achievements and features of precious metal processing techniques at that time. Fine cloud patterns, continuous hook-like patterns and patterns of Panli, a dragon-like animal but without horns, were carved on the cup cap and around its mouth.