No.8808   2004. 6. 9

Suntory Museum of Art to Present Ancient Chinese Calligraphy and Relics
∼ Introducing Archaeological Finds of “Mawangdui & Zoumalou” ∼

Fragment of the Mawangdui Silk Book “Zhou Yi” (the method of fortune telling)
Excavated from No. 3 tomb of Mawangdui, Changsha City, in 1973
Western Han dynasty
Hunan Provincial Museum

Suntory Museum of Art is to present “Ancient Chinese Calligraphy and Relics ∼ Introducing Archeological Finds of ‘Mawangdui & Zoumalou’” from Tuesday, 7 September to Sunday, 24 October 2004. This exhibition showcases an extensive collection of valuable pieces carrying Hunan culture around 2,200 years ago through A.D. 3rd century, highlighting the Mawangdui and Zoumalou excavations.

The city of Changsha, capital of Hunan Province, reported two eminently profound findings in archaeology to reveal the ancient history. One is the Mawangdui Han Tombs that surprised the world in 1972 uncovering a mummified woman in an excellent condition along with abundant untouched relics. Another counts a collection of articles excavated from the ruins of Zhoumalou at the center of Changsha, among which numerous wooden message strips have attracted much attention since the 1996 excavation for their historical values to irradiate life and culture during the Three Kingdom period. For the first time in Japan, this exhibition introduces these epoch-making findings from Changsha as well as other artifacts in Hunan Province.

The relics of the Mawangdui Han Tombs cover a wide range of items, including writings and drawings on silk and on wooden strips, seals and lacquer ware, fabrics and musical instruments, etc. These items are of significant values to convey the history and culture in early Western Han dynasty dating back 2,200 years. In this exhibition, the highlights fall on to writings on silk and on wooden strips rarely displayed in Japan before, featuring the vigorous calligraphy art of ancient China brilliantly shown in dynamic strokes. Also, introduced are lacquer ware, silk fabrics, wooden figurines, imperial seals, bronze, and more for your diversified tour through the Mawangdui Han Tombs.

Among the Zoumalou articles, wooden message strips are recognized not only for their academic values, but also as calligraphy art showcases to give a glimpse of the extensive variety in the semi-cursive and square scripts to even pre-Wang XiZhi cursive scripts. We will also introduce numbers of the Western Han bamboo strips, which were unearthed in 1999 at Mr. Huxi in Yuanling County of Hunan Province and yet to be publicized even in China, marking remarkable development of the Chinese excavations.

Featuring 186 items to be brought in Japan for the first time including 86 articles never presented outside China, this exhibition will display a total of 227 pieces in 93 categories.

▼ The Suntory Museum of Art Homepage: http://www.suntory.co.jp/sma/