As scholars, researchers and archaeologists at the Shanghai Museum slowly reconstruct fragments of ancient handscroll paintings and stone Buddhist sculptures, they are simultaneously trying to piece together a massive puzzle -- one that stretches out in four dimensions.

And when these "art detectives" focus on the fourth aspect -- time -- they lament many pieces of the past have been lost or shattered through war and turbulence.

Great swaths of China's imperial-era culture were looted or destroyed by foreign invaders or Chinese combatants. And some was razed, sacked or simply destroyed during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) period, when many treasures, such as Buddhist relics and ancient Chinese paintings, were lost for ever.

"But the country is now embarked on a great restoration project," says Shanghai Museum curator Li Chaoyuan. "The more deeply we understand ancient Chinese civilization, the better we can construct an enlightened future."

The Shanghai Museum's design, which features a circular roof above a rectangular base, is at the cutting edge of Chinese architecture, but also symbolizes the union of Heaven and Earth in a modern echo of centuries-old Chinese temples.

Beneath a vast crystalline dome, middle school students gather around a touch-screen display panel to digitally surf the museum's exhibits, which cover the evolution of Chinese civilization over the course of 4,000 years.

Nearby, the museum's ancient bronze gallery -- one of the world's best -- traces the origins of not only Chinese art, but also the country's social structure and political hierarchy.

Among the earliest exhibits are 3,500-year-old turquoise-embedded halberds and bronze ritual vessels that are etched with the images of mythical animals.

The bronze weapons were used in battles to create China's earliest kingdoms, and the vessels were employed by shaman-leaders to legitimize their rule through ritual sacrifices to their ancestors.

Curator Li, an expert on bronze antiquities, says: "More than half of the museum's collection has come from excavations of royal tombs and temples."

The Shanghai Museum's ongoing effort to help shape China's 21st-century culture by recombining remnants of history is being echoed across the nation.

In southern Guangdong, new Buddhist temples are spreading across the province, while in Beijing, traditional festivals and music are being revived.

Yet Shanghai seems to be pouring the most money into building a world-class mecca for Chinese culture, says David Shambaugh, who heads an Asian studies center at George Washington University in Washington, DC. "Shanghai was long known as the cosmopolitan capital of Greater China," which includes not only the People's Republic, but also the tens of millions of ethnic Chinese who live outside the Chinese mainland, he says.

With its new museum, opera house and high-tech library, "Shanghai may also be trying to become the cultural capital of Greater China," adds Professor Shambaugh, a widely respected China scholar.

Li says most of the funding for Shanghai's new museum and nearby concert hall came from the government, with other contributions from Chinese scattered across the globe.

City and the central government all extended their support into building the museum at the center of Shanghai's People's Square -- once the stage of massive Red Guard rallies to smash all traces of tradition during the "cultural revolution."

Then, countless centuries-old Chinese writings, bronze Buddhist icons and ink-and-color paintings were destroyed in a drive to erase the country's "feudal vestige."

But the decade-long turmoil paradoxically helped the Shanghai Museum expand its collection of ancient paintings and ceramics.

When the zealots began house-to-house searches for remnants of China's pre-revolutionary past, "sometimes private collectors would call the museum and say 'the Red Guards are on their way -- please take away my collection,'" says museum official Li.

"After the chaos ended," he adds, "many collectors opted to donate their works to the museum."

Since then, people across China have contributed artworks or cash to the Shanghai Museum to boost efforts to resurrect Chinese culture, say many experts on Chinese art.

Wang Qingzheng, vice-director of the Shanghai Museum, says overseas Chinese have donated more than US$10 million and hundreds of artworks in the last several years.

Wang, the museum's chief fundraiser, says he has "met many potential donors at international auctions over the years," and adds that they are bound by a common link.

"People in Taiwan and Hong Kong and overseas Chinese have a common education and are steeped in common traditions -- we are united in our love for traditional Chinese culture," Wang says.

Professor Shambaugh says "the recreation of a global Cultural China is a huge joint venture between Taiwan, Hong Kong and the mainland, and the Shanghai Museum is a microcosm of that process."

The Shanghai Museum has been so successful in piecing together the 4-D puzzle of China's cultural past in order to help sculpt the future that its praises are being sung across the country and the planet.

Chaos Chen, one of the dynamic young innovators behind the Millennium Art Museum's rival drive to become a global magnet for art fans, says the Shanghai Museum is easily ahead in that race.

Chen says that in terms of engaging everyone from ordinary Chinese citizens to global art centers in an increasingly interactive exchange, "the Shanghai Museum has become China's first world-class art museum."

(China Daily January 26, 2005)