How Victor Mair got his Mummies

I wrote a few weeks ago about the kerfuffle at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.  The museum was set to be the final stop in a three-city tour of artifacts from the Silk Road, which included priceless mummified remains excavated from the Taklamakan Basin. Just as the show was about to open, Chinese officials abruptly refused to allow the display of the mummies, sending museum and university representatives, including Victor Mair who is closely associated both with the study and the controversies surrounding the mummies, into a Michael Vick-worthy scramble.  Notices were sent, refunds issued, meetings arranged, stunt mummies deployed.

Now comes happy word from Professor Mair that the exhibit has reopened, with the actual mummies this time, as of this past Friday.

From Friday’s press conference:

On opening day, neither Museum officials nor visiting Chinese dignitaries would explain why the objects were initially blocked in Philadelphia, only saying there was a “miscommunication.”

They are now on display thanks to a desperate trip to the Chinese embassy by Mair, begging to display the mummies, if only for three weeks. The exhibition was planned to run until June, and will be open without the mummies for three

February 20th, 2011

The Burning of the Yuanmingyuan: 150 Years Later

150 years ago this month, troops from an Anglo-French expedition torched the imperial gardens located in Northwest Beijing.  The multiplicity of meanings associated with the site and the complicated circumstances of its destruction make for fascinating history as well as an opportunity for the CCP’s educational minions to leech that history of any real substance — other than as a crude device to teach ‘patriotism.’

Author, scholar, and fellow IES faculty member Sheila Melvin has a great piece in last week’s New York Times discussing the history of the Yuanmingyuan.  She writes:

On the low end of the scale was a free performance called “The Legend of Yuanmingyuan,” which was held weekend evenings on the Yuanmingyuan grounds last summer. Staged by the Beijing Dragon in the Sky Shadow Puppet Troupe and considered “patriotic education” for children, the show alternated shadow puppets and costumed dwarfs in a reenactment that saw invading troops bravely staved off by local villagers using kung fu and bayonets. Foreigners — played by dwarfs wearing curly yellow-wool wigs — were depicted as venal and stupid barbarians who could not even speak their own languages. Eager to aid the emperor, the brave Chinese villagers repeatedly shouted, “Kill the foreign

October 24th, 2010

The Ghost of Zheng He rises…again

Map of Zheng He's voyages

Perhaps no Chinese historical figure causes more eye-rolling among historians than the super-naval-bad-ass-7-foot-tall-could-have-discovered-America-but-didn’t-even-if-I’m-a-eunuch-Columbus-still-couldn’t-carry-my-jock admiral Zheng He.*  He’s someone that students often ask about, and I’ve written a few posts over the years on the different Zheng He controversies which bubble to the surface of the popular press from time to time.

Like a lot of other historical figures, Zheng He’s story and image are often appropriated as stand-ins for the controversy du jour, whether it’s China in Africa, or China’s rise as a regional naval power capable of projecting force into the waters of Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean…coincidentally, Zheng He’s old sailing ground.  This past week, a team of Chinese archaeologists have been searching off the coast of Kenya for a shipwreck that some believe was a part of Zheng He’s Ming-era armada.

But what was Zheng He’s mission?

In China, Zheng He is usually depicted as an explorer and diplomat, as in this  People’s Daily editorial from 2005 marking the 600th anniversary of Zheng He’s departure:

Zheng He led the ancient world history and the friendly exchanges among different nations, setting a shining example of the history of the exchanges of

July 29th, 2010

Tombs, Teleology (and Texas)

Today’s People’s Daily reports that archaeologist working in Sichuan province have uncovered a 4200-year old grave at the Sanxingdui site in which the remains appear to be a man and a woman embracing each other.  It might be in keeping with my habits to wax poetic on the permanence of love (or the horrors of live burial) but then  my train of thought was derailed by a patch of teleology and bad history.

Archaeologists believe that the Sanxingcun site was once a large ancient settlement in the Chengdu Plain in China’s ancient Shang and Zhou dynasties. There have always been settlers on this land over the past 4,000-plus years.

Apparently the idea of contemporaneous but independent civilizations existing in the space that is now the PRC is a little too wacky and wild for the journalists at the People’s Daily.  Repeat after me reporters from The People’s Daily and dentists from Texas: History is messy and full of contradictions, it doesn’t need to be a set of neat compartmentalized facts bundled and packaged to justify the present.

No, really…it’s not.

March 26th, 2010

Henan Cultural Preservation Office resists calls to commercialize Cao Cao’s tomb

Even centuries later, Cao Cao sure knows how to start a turf war.  This week the Henan Cultural Preservation Office issued a statement saying that there were no plans to commercialize the recently discovered tomb of Three Kingdoms era general Cao Cao.  Spokesperson Sun Yingmin said that great care was needed to preserve and study “one of China’s greatest archaeological discoveries.”

I suspect what may be going on here is akin to an ongoing battle in Shaanxi over the tomb of Qin Shihuang, the first Qin Emperor.  Some government officials, anxious to develop the regional economy, are eager to exploit famous archaeological sites for tourism hoping to add some cash to the local coffers.  Archaeologists, historians, and the like are reluctant to rush excavations for fear of causing irreparable harm to the contents of the tombs.

This sounds like a bit of preemptive strike on the part of Henan Cultural Preservation officials to their more profit-driven brethren to back off and let the researchers work.

March 9th, 2010
 
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