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The fourth national cultural relics census was launched not long ago. The census will cover immovable cultural relics above ground, underground and underwater. Nanjing is one of China’s “Four Ancient Capitals” and one of the first batch of national historical and cultural cities. Listen to Yang Xinhua, the former deputy director of the Nanjing Municipal Cultural Relics Bureau who has been engaged in cultural relics preservation work for more than 30 years, talk about the extraordinary path Nanjing has taken in previous national cultural relics censuses.
55 items of “national security” in three censuses
People in Nanjing enthusiastically hand over cultural relics
- Nanjing currently has 55 national key cultural relics protection units;
- 114 provincial cultural relics protection units;
- There are more than 400 municipal-level cultural relics protection units…
They are closely related to the three national cultural relics censuses. Yang Xinhua has participated in two national cultural relics censuses, the “Second Census” and the “Third Census”. According to him, although the objects of the “First Census” census at that time were immovable cultural relics, there was still a phenomenon of people enthusiastically handing in and donating movable cultural relics in Nanjing.
The coverage area of the “Second Census” is significantly larger than that of the “First Census”, and the overall control of the country’s cultural relics resources has been basically achieved. Through this census, the team of Nanjing’s cultural and museum institutions has been strengthened, the establishment of cultural relics files has been improved, and the level of cultural relics protection and management has also been significantly improved. For Nanjing, the significance of the “Three General Surveys” is even more extraordinary. With the acceleration of Nanjing’s urbanization process and the development of large-scale urban and rural construction, it will comprehensively grasp the quantity, distribution, characteristics, preservation status, and environmental conditions of the city’s immovable cultural relics. This provides scientific support for the basic situation, accurate judgment of the cultural relics protection situation, and scientific formulation of cultural relics protection policies and plans.
It is worth mentioning that previous censuses of cultural relics have left a lot of precious historical materials for Nanjing. Yang Xinhua himself has compiled fifty or sixty books, including “Nanjing Ming City Wall”, “Nanjing Ming and Qing Architecture”, and “Exploring the Origin of the Tomb of King Bangni” “The Essence of Jinling Stele Inscriptions” and other works have laid a solid foundation for subsequent research on Nanjing’s cultural relics.
“Annihilated” for more than a hundred years
Shi Wugui begins his journey to be promoted to “National Security”
In recent years, Nanjing has attached great importance to the protection and application of the “Maritime Silk Road·China Historical Sites”. As an important central city on the Maritime Silk Road, Nanjing has a large number of historical relics closely related to it. The Longjiang Shipyard Site and the Tomb of King Bangni, which were listed as the first batch of heritage sites, are closely related to the first national cultural relics census.
According to Yang Xinhua, on May 12, 1958, Nanjing cultural relics workers were fortunate enough to discover the tomb of King Bangni that had been “hidden” for more than a hundred years while conducting a census of cultural relics in the southern suburbs. At that time, the census workers met several farmers nearby. One farmer told a legend he had heard since he was a child: “Our mountain is called Turtle Mountain, and there is a stone turtle on the mountain…” The stone turtle was the ancient prince and minister. Standard for burials.
The census workers followed the farmers’ instructions and climbed up Turtle Mountain, and sure enough they found the headless stone turtle. After repeated research and analysis, this unknown tomb was finally confirmed to be the place where the new king of Bangni, Manarajanana, was buried.
Today’s Tomb of King Bangni has a solemn and elegant environment. It is not only a national key cultural relic protection unit, but also a heritage site of the Maritime Silk Road. Empowered by high technology and big data, heritage monitoring data collection and entry work continues.
From “city defense project” to “cultural relics”
The unsolved mystery of the centuries-old length of the Ming city wall has been solved
It was with the launch of the Second National Cultural Relics Census that the Ming City Wall came into people’s sight for the first time as a “cultural relic” rather than a city defense project.
Since the “Second National Population Plan”, Nanjing has increased its investment in maintaining the city wall and improving the surrounding environment.
- In 2004, the “Nanjing Ming City Wall Scenic Belt Plan” was implemented and was awarded the “China Human Settlements Environment Example Award”
- In 2006, the “Feasibility Study Report on the Application of Nanjing Ming City Wall as a World Cultural Heritage” was completed.
”The length of the Nanjing City Wall has always been stated differently. The length of the Nanjing City Wall was measured at the time of the ‘Second Survey’ to be 33.676 kilometers.” Through cooperation with the Jiangsu Provincial Bureau of Surveying and Mapping at the time, the final measurement results solved the unsolved mystery of the length of the Nanjing City Wall since the Ming Dynasty.
In 2016, with the submission of the application text of China’s Ming and Qing city walls to the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, which embodies the efforts of researchers for many years, Nanjing took the lead in jointly applying for China’s Ming and Qing city walls to be a World Heritage Site, taking another big step forward.
Today, the “Nanjing City Wall ‘One Picture’ Cultural Heritage Digital Archive System” built by the Nanjing City Wall Protection and Management Center has established the earliest Nanjing City Wall cultural heritage digital archive based on the GIS geographical information system. At the same time, the Nanjing City Wall’s full-dimensional data on its history, geography, and repairs were integrated into “One Picture” to build the Nanjing City Wall’s “One Picture” cultural relics resource management platform, providing accurate information for the protection, research, display, and utilization of Nanjing City Wall’s cultural heritage. data support.
Important new discoveries in the “Three Censuses”
Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge and Jinling Hotel
The Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge and the Jinling Hotel are both landmark buildings in Nanjing. In the third national cultural relics census, both were listed as important “new discoveries” of Nanjing’s immovable cultural relics.
Although the Jinling Hotel was only completed and opened in 1983 and the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge was opened to traffic in 1968, they both carry extremely rich cultural connotations. The Jinling Hotel is the forerunner of modern hotels in China and was once the central landmark of Nanjing. The Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge is of great significance to the history of Chinese bridges. Everything from a nail to the load-bearing data of highways and railways are all independently produced by our technicians. Designed.
Even so, when they were listed as cultural heritage more than ten years ago, they were still ridiculed by many people. Yang Xinhua said that the early inclusion of the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge and Jinling Hotel as immovable cultural relics would be conducive to early intervention and scientific protection.
In October 2016, the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge Highway Bridge entered the stage of closure and renovation, and its highway bridge maintenance and cultural relic protection project was successfully selected for the fifth “National Outstanding Historic Site Protection Project”. This is the highest award in the field of cultural relics protection projects in China.
Today, the Jinling Hotel is the youngest district-level general immovable cultural relic in Nanjing, and the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge is the youngest Nanjing municipal-level cultural preservation unit. The Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge has also been selected into the “First Batch of China’s 20th Century Architectural Heritage List” and the “First Batch China Industrial Heritage Protection List”.
The Fourth National Cultural Relics Census
What new discoveries will be made in Nanjing’s “cultural landscape”?
The fourth national census of cultural relics has begun. In addition to covering immovable cultural relics above ground, underground and underwater, and following the principle of “protecting everything that should be protected”, the scope, connotation and objects of this census have expanded and innovated.
The Fourth National Cultural Relics Census clearly includes “cultural landscapes” as census objects for the first time, including “combinations that are deliberately designed and created for aesthetic, social, cultural and other reasons to interact harmoniously and harmoniously with the natural environment” and “as historical “Important physical evidence of evolution and development, through connection or adaptation with the surrounding natural environment, it has developed from the initial social needs to its current form, and plays an active role in the close integration of today’s society and traditional lifestyles” etc.
Experts in the industry believe that Nanjing, as the world’s “literary capital”, is bound to usher in important “new discoveries” of relevant cultural relics among the many historical relics that can be admired and read.
