The Palace Museum in Beijing Tuesday regained some invaluable historical records on its collections that were shipped to China's south in the early 1930s to avoid looting by Japanese intruding forces.
Curator Zheng Xinmiao said these priceless records, donated by descendants of a former museum veteran in Taiwan, have "exceptional value and significance" as these replenished historical data epitomized the hard evidence of the museum in the 25 post-founding years of the museum, which is really rare in Beijing.
After Japan intruded into and occupied China's northeast in 1931, the Chinese government moved more than 13,000 boxes of invaluable collections of the museum to the south in an effort to shun the looting by Japanese intruders. They collections eventually ended up in Taiwan, which contributed to the establishment of the "Palace Museum" in Taipei.
The donation consists of 150 pieces of documents, seals, pictures, calligraphic works and medals. They were presented to the museum by ascendants of Prof. Na Zhiliang, a native of Beijingwho had participated in the historic southward shipment of the collections as a worker of the museum.
Prof. Na attached himself to the museum, where he had spent seven decades of his life till his death, from 1925 in the Palace Museum of Peiping to the "Palace Museum" in Taipei after the 1940s.
"The most valuable thing about these wonders is that they tell us how the veteran workers of the Palace Museum had defied various challenges to ensure the security of the national treasures," said Prof. Wang Ching-Tai of "National Taiwan University of Arts", who also pitched in to sort out these historical relics.
The museum, built on the foundation of the Imperial Place built in the early 1400s, has been listed by the UNESCO as a World heritage site.
(Xinhua News Agency June 22, 2005)
