Archaeology and politics in China: Historical paradigm and identity construction in museum exhibitions

Development of China’s historical paradigm, from the late-imperial era to the present

As I have argued elsewhere, Chinese historical thought underwent a paradigmatic shift in the late 1980s – a shift which has since influenced archaeological and historical research. ⁴ In the period between the rise of the CCP and Mao Zedong’s death (1949–76), the reigning historical paradigm was Marxist. According to this understanding, the historical continuum was comprised of distinct stages: barbarism, slave society, feudalism, capitalism and communism. Each of these phases ended in revolution and a significant transformation of economic, social and political structures. That paradigm, which I call ‘rupture’, was replaced in the 1980s by a paradigm of ‘continuity’, which emphasizes cultural continuity in China from the Neolithic period through to the present era. According to this paradigm, the development of Chinese culture or civilization can be understood as a slow accumulation process of cultural features – symbols, customs, expressions and the like – and the gradual integration of societies from the different geographic regions that are part of China. In other words, according to this model, Chinese culture and identity existed, albeit in an embryonic state, already 9000 years ago and there is an unbroken connection between the present and the past.

This perspective was coherently presented in a highly influential article by the renowned Chinese archaeologist Su Bingqi (1909–97) ⁵ and by the mid-1990s it had become the paradigm uniting archaeologists and historians of early China. ⁶ A recent literature review lists no fewer than 800 archaeological articles and books, published in recent years by members of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, addressing the roots of Chinese civilization, ⁷ indicating the centrality of the continuity model to current archaeological and historical research in Chinese.

The paradigm of historical continuity dovetails with contemporary constructions of Chinese national identity. With the decline of enthusiasm for communism, nationalism remains practically the only source of social cohesion and an important foundation for the legitimacy of the CCP’s rule over China. Claims about the antiquity of Chinese cultural identity and its uninterrupted continuity, unmatched by any other culture in the world, are important components of national pride.

Nevertheless, the paradigm of continuity is neither static nor monolithic. Although continuity from the prehistoric past through history and up to the present is the accepted frame for the national narrative, the details and emphases of this narrative have shifted in accordance with the social, economic, and geo-political transformations that have taken place in China over the past few decades. ⁸ In the 1980s, for example, national identity construction was rooted, among other things, in an emphasis on the indigenous origin of Chinese cultural, scientific and technological achievements. In geographic terms, this meant an emphasis on the Yellow River basin as the cradle of Chinese civilization and a denial of the significance of links to cultures outside of China as possible sources of influence or inspiration; by the turn of the millennium, the increased importance of different regions within China gave rise to a much more inclusive view of the past. Moreover, with China’s ascendance on the international stage and its growing openness to global cultural and academic ties, the willingness to admit the importance of these links during historic and prehistoric periods grew accordingly. ⁹ This does not detract from the continued dominance of the continuity paradigm, but it does lend it a somewhat different tone, allowing for greater exchange of ideas within the borders of China and beyond, and even interpreting such cultural cross-fertilization as cause for national pride. In this article, I address the diachronic changes in the way the prehistoric past was presented to the public in archaeological museums and used to construct the national identity. In addition, by comparing the exhibitions at the National Museum of China (中国国家博物馆) and the Liaoning Provincial Museum (辽宁省博物馆), I wish to highlight the spatial variation in local adaptations of this historical paradigm within China.

The past in the light of material culture in China

The supremacy of words, written and recalled, over matter is one of the most prominent imageries of Chinese culture. ¹⁰ This imagery, though certainly rooted in fact, suffers from being overly formulaic. In fact, the development of antiquarianism in China predates that of Europe. Already in the Tang dynasty (618–907), if not earlier, Chinese emperors collected art and ancient objects, mostly paintings and calligraphy but also ancient artefacts, especially bronzeware with inscriptions and jade objects. From the Northern Song period (963–1127) the Chinese developed a tradition of systematic cataloguing of such collections: attempts were made to date the objects, decipher their inscriptions, and document them in catalogues. Those techniques continue to be the basis for identifying and documenting artefacts and inscriptions up to this day. In the late-imperial era, during the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties, this tradition of collecting, sorting and cataloguing antique artefacts spread to the educated elites. Ownership of such collections and the publication of detailed catalogues were a source of political and social prestige and legitimation. ¹¹ This association between political power and control over significant material relics of China’s past persists in China to this day.

All the same, China’s encounter with the West and its entry into the international arena constituted a turning point in Chinese attitudes toward the material aspects of culture, both in the present (such as the adoption of Western technology) and the past. The materialist perspective – emphasizing the material and technological aspects of historical accomplishments and of desired contemporary developments – was at the time, and continues to be, part of China’s modernization process. In the context of history, a critical appraisal of the past was a prominent aspect of the thought of modernist intellectuals from the early 20th-century New Culture Movement, and particularly the Doubting Antiquity School (疑古派) such as Gu Jiegang (1893–1980) and Fu Sinian (1896–1950). This critical perspective was deeply informed by Western philological and historiographic methods, and it sought to transform the Chinese classics into historical sources by cleansing them of mythology, anachronisms, late additions and ideological biases. ¹² Some members of the Doubting Antiquity School turned to archaeology, also newly arrived from the West in the early 20th century, as a scientific means of breaking from the dependency on the classics and of verifying them objectively.

The earliest archaeological discoveries in China are linked to the names of foreign researchers such as the Swedish geologist and archaeologist Johan Gunnar Andersson (1874–1960). Nonetheless, Chinese archaeologists, some trained in the West and others in China, have been active participants and even the initiators of each important archaeological dig that has taken place in China since the 1920s. The excavation at the Ruins of Yin (殷墟), the late capital of the ancient Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BCE) near Anyang in Henan Province, are highly significant for the development of national archaeology in China: the beginning of excavations in 1927 was the first flagship initiative of the newly established Chinese Academy of Sciences. Fu Sinian was one of the key advocates of this project, not just because of his enthusiasm about archaeology’s potential to transform Chinese history into an objective science, but also for nationalist reasons of protecting China’s heritage from appropriation by imperialist forces. ¹³

The excavations at the Ruins of Yin are where the methodologies of Chinese archaeological research were formed, where the first generation of Chinese archaeologists were trained, and where models for categorizing findings and presenting them to the public were developed. In the wake of these excavations, archaeological science came to enjoy a high level of prestige in China that has largely endured to this day. Simultaneously, the profound association between material findings and Chinese historical and national culture came to be fixed both in the public consciousness and among professional archaeologists. The excavations yielded impressive finds, including massive graves, numerous bronze vessels, some weighing over 500 kilograms, and tens of thousands of inscriptions on bones (known as ‘oracle bones’ 甲骨文). The previously unknown oracle bones were subsequently identified as bearing the oldest form of Chinese script.

Paradoxically, the success of modern scientific methodology – archaeological excavations using Western methods – played a crucial role in shaping the conservative approach which came to characterize Chinese archaeology and historiography over subsequent generations. The historical existence of the Shang dynasty – previously believed by revisionist historians to be mythical – was proven by the inscriptions and other material findings. Consequently, for most scholars, the credibility of all classical texts was confirmed, and archaeology, precisely because of its prestige among the public and in the high corridors of power, gradually became a research methodology aimed not at examining and challenging knowledge of the past, but rather at confirming classic depictions of it. Archaeology, furthermore, was valued for supplying impressive artefacts for exhibitions glorifying this past. Thus, despite the dramatic ideological upheavals China has experienced throughout the 20th century and despite significant transformations in the Chinese appraisal of their past, it seems that the role attached to archaeological science has not changed. Since the height of communist fervour through to the present day, archaeological discoveries have generally not been perceived as threatening to the prevailing paradigm, but rather as illuminating it and mediating between the paradigm’s masters (government and academics) and the general public.

As noted earlier, a paradigmatic shift regarding material culture accompanied the ascendency of the continuity approach in the 1980s. Up until then, in accordance with the traditional approach, archaeological research focused on the central Yellow River and the Wei River basins – the part of China called ‘the central plains’ (中原) in classical sources. According to traditional wisdom, the central plains are where China’s most fundamental social and cultural processes took place: where complex societies and states first appeared; where Chinese writing developed; and where China’s characteristic rituals, technology and arts originated and spread out to other parts of the country. In the 1980s, leading Chinese and foreign archaeologists, such as Su Bingqi and Chang Kwang-chih (1931–2001), developed a new model with a much broader and more diverse geographical and archaeological definition of Chinese culture. ¹⁴ Their ideas were seen as practically heretical at first, but by the mid-1990s they had become widely accepted. ¹⁵ Ideological transformations and economic and political decentralization have led to the integration of findings from across China into the official narrative of China’s cultural and historical development, and the ‘out of the central plains’ model was replaced by a model touting the diverse ethnic and geographical sources of Chinese culture.

A brief history of museums in China

During the same period that the Doubting Antiquity School was calling for a systematic re-examination of the classics and as archaeology became a scientific tool for studying the past, another Western model – that of displaying antique and other artefacts in museums open to the general public – gained popularity. In fact, key figures in the Chinese cultural and intellectual reform movement, such as Kang Youwei (1858–1927) and Liang Qichao (1873–1929) and later Fu Sinian and others, viewed museums as crucial institutions for the modernization process that China had to undergo. ¹⁶ At the same time, museums were also seen by those intellectuals as a way of promoting national belonging and celebrating a shared national past.

The first museums in China were in fact initiated and funded by foreign missionaries and followed the conventions of natural history museums, with their eclectic collections of artefacts, which had at the time begun appearing in the West. ¹⁷ According to received wisdom, the Nantong Museum (南通博物苑), which opened its doors in 1906, is the first ‘Chinese’ museum. The museum, built by the wealthy industrialist Zhang Jian (1853–1926), contained exhibits dedicated to history, art and nature, as well as a botanical garden and a zoo. ¹⁸ Indeed, museums built in the early 20th century, such as the Nantong Museum, were an expression of the Chinese elite’s desire for modernization and opening up to Western science and technology, as part of the endeavour to strengthen the nation.

The infrastructure for national museums, as well as state-initiated and state-funded museums, began being put into place immediately following the establishment of the Republic of China in 1911 and accelerated throughout the 1920s and 1930s. A prominent example of the link between the past and the present and the deployment of the past for political legitimacy is the Palace Museum in Beijing (故宫博物院); the imperial palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties first opened to the public in 1925. The transformation of what was once the very heart of imperial rule, where entrance was severely restricted, into a public museum space signifies quite aptly the transformation of values China experienced during the Republican period. Displays of imperial collections – including artwork, antiquities and imperial gifts – were aimed at reiterating the moral and political legitimacy of the Republican regime and reinforcing Chinese national pride and unity at a time of weakness and internal divisions. ¹⁹

As in many other realms, the planning and design of museums established in the early years of communist rule were deeply influenced by the Soviet model. Nonetheless, the first great wave of museum construction took place during the Great Leap Forward (1958–61), when China was gradually emerging from under Soviet hegemony. During this period, as part of the preparations for the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the People’s Republic, it was decided to quickly construct the Ten Great Buildings in Beijing. These 10 monumental structures, completed within 10 months, included no fewer than four museums and exhibition halls: the Museum of Chinese History (中国历史博物馆) and the Museum of Chinese Revolution (中国革命博物馆) (these two museums were merged into today’s National Museum of China), the Cultural Palace of Nationalities (民族文化宫, housing an ethnographic museum), the Military Museum of the Chinese People’s Revolution (中国人民革命军事博物馆), and the China National Agricultural Exhibition Centre (全国农业展览馆). ²⁰ At the same time, the government began a publicity campaign proclaiming the availability of culture, including museums, to the nation’s citizens. One slogan from the period called for ‘a museum in every county, an exhibition room in every community’. ²¹

Two prominent characteristics of archaeological (and other) exhibitions of the 1950s and 1960s were, first, extensive use of various graphic illustrations – vast murals, sculptures, and especially models and dioramas of historical scenes – and, second, long quotes from Mao Zedong. The combination of the two, which invariably dwarfed the artefacts themselves, was meant to bring the past to life while ensuring the correct interpretation. The party’s relationship with the past, however, contained a contradiction that was not easily overcome, between the need to glorify the past accomplishments of the Chinese people as part of the formation of national pride and identity and the desire to represent the CCP as having liberated the people from a repressive predatory regime and having brought them out from social and economic backwardness into the light of progress. An awareness of these contradictions and an attempt to reconcile them is found in Mao’s thought. For example, in his 1940 essay ‘On New Democracy’, Mao provides an example that was often quoted in archaeological exhibitions during the 1950s and 1960s:

A splendid old culture was created during the long period of Chinese feudal society. To study the development of this old culture, to reject its feudal dross and assimilate its democratic essence is a necessary condition for developing our new national culture and increasing our national self-confidence, but we should never swallow anything and everything uncritically. It is imperative to separate the fine old culture of the people which had a more or less democratic and revolutionary character from all the decadence of the old feudal ruling class. ²²

This ambivalent view of the past came to the fore during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). Descriptions of the destruction wrought by the Red Guards upon ancient sites and artefacts are apparently exaggerated, but such destruction did nonetheless take place along with the shuttering of cultural and educational institutions, including museums, or their complete subordination to the radical ideology of the Proletarian Revolution.

Since the end of the Cultural Revolution following Mao’s death, and especially since the 1980s, the design of historical and archaeological museums in China has undergone significant reform. The explanations with their revolutionary fervour and extensive quotations from Mao in catalogues and exhibitions were replaced by ‘dry’ factual descriptions which emphasize the paradigm of Chinese cultural continuity. The quantity of dioramas and other visual illustrations was reduced in order to give precedence to the artefacts themselves. These changes are to a certain extent related to the modernization of museums and exhibition design in China. Most museums, including those visited for the purpose of this article, employ modern well-illuminated display cases, which showcase the artefacts, enlarge smaller items and highlight details. Touch screens and digital systems provide visitors with detailed descriptions, multiple views of objects, recreations of the artefacts’ presumed usage, and more.

The more traditional visual displays, the aforementioned illustrations and monumental reconstructions, are still popular in smaller museums and in museums attached to archaeological sites. These, however, often include spaces for screening videos (sometimes in 3D) of historical and cultural reconstructions. For example, the lavish museum recently inaugurated at the Neolithic site in Niuheliang in Liaoning Province contains a range of such visual aids, including dioramas. ²³

According to some scholars, the 1980s saw the greatest growth both in the construction of new museums and in the development of existing ones. ²⁴ However, it would appear that since the turn of the millennium, the rate at which new museums spring up in China and the amount of money invested in them have continued to grow. A recent survey showed that between 2000 and 2012 the number of museums in China nearly doubled, from roughly 2000 to 3866. ²⁵ According to the categories employed by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (国家文物局), China today has 574 museums dedicated wholly or mostly to archaeological displays. The list includes 108 archaeological museums of the highest official rank: the national museum, various provincial museums, additional prominent museums, and museums at key sites such as the Zhoukoudian (Peking Man) site near Beijing and the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor in Shaanxi. Another 178 museums are ranked at the second level: museums in less important cities and second-grade archaeological sites, and 288 other museums ranked as third level. ²⁶

The immense investments in museum construction are accompanied by substantial government resources deployed to making the museums accessible to as wide an audience as possible. In 2008, the central government launched a scheme to open China’s key museums without charging entrance fees. The plan, which covers national and provincial-level museums and many others (but not, for example, museums at archaeological and historical sites or nature reserves), required the commitment of very significant resources to support museum activities, estimated at more than US$1 billion over the span of five years. Additionally, government investments in museums during the same period rose about 18.5 per cent annually. ²⁷ This policy had clear and rapid effects on the number of museum visitors in China. For example, according to a report published by the Themed Entertainment Association, 7.55 million people visited the National Museum of China in 2016, making it for the first time the world’s most visited museum. The authors of this report list free admission as one of three reasons (alongside sheer population size and tourism) for this surge. ²⁸

The Chinese central government clearly views museums as an important component of the cultural and ideological infrastructure needed to forge a national identity and solidarity that will ensure social and political stability. This view was evident in the 1996 establishment of the ‘Chinese Communist Party Central Committee’s Central Commission for Guiding Cultural and Ethical Progress’ (中国共产党中央精神文明建设指导委员会) and particularly its emphasis on promoting the policy of ‘spiritual civilization’. ²⁹

The investment in museums dovetails with the push for economic development and the desire to create tourist attractions aimed at both local Chinese visitors and tourists from abroad. ³⁰ Although entrance to some museums might be free, other museums, especially those located at historical sites, charge relatively high entrance fees. Entrance to the site of the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor (the Terracotta Army site), for example, is RMB 150 (over US$20). Even lesser-known sites charge steep entrance fees: for example, entrance to the Niuheliang Neolithic site and the new museum next to it is RMB 100. At the same time, governments encourage these museums to develop additional revenue streams, such as the selling of souvenirs and additional attractions. ³¹ State authorities, especially local ones (at the provincial and district level), have a vested interest in encouraging tourism where the income generated is far greater than the sale of museum tickets.

One of the most interesting processes, which has accelerated in recent years, is the establishment of museums dedicated to specific topics. These are usually small institutions, and they are often located far from big city centres or famous tourist sites. They might be dedicated to a local attribute, such as a local product or an activity associated with the locale, a famous historical event, a local historical figure, or an archaeological or historic site. Many such museums were established through local initiatives, often with private or semi-private funding. ³² The development of local tourism and the creation of new sources of income in rural areas are the explicit impetus for the establishment of many such local museums. However, the consolidation of local identity and pride play an equally important role.

The National Museum of China in Beijing ³³

The history of the National Museum of China and its permanent archaeological exhibition have been discussed at length in several scholarly studies. ³⁴ Thus, it will suffice here to provide a brief description of the museum’s establishment and transformation, followed by a more detailed focus on the design and content of the present exhibition.

The decision to establish a national museum of history was made during the first year of the Republic of China. At the time, the museum was located in the building that had housed the Imperial Academy. The museum did not open to the public until 1926 and subsequently changed locations several times throughout the Republican era, among other reasons for fear that the museum’s artefacts would be seized by the Japanese. Even after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the museum continued to relocate in various venues, including sections of the Forbidden City, until the building currently housing the museum was built on the eastern end of Tiananmen Square.

As discussed at length by Wu Hung, ³⁵ the construction of Tiananmen Square as the symbolic heart of the reborn Chinese nation was a long process, but one of the key stages of this endeavour took place in 1958–9, when the two monumental structures that dominate Tiananmen Square – the National Museum in the East and The Great Hall of the People housing the Chinese National Congress in the West – were completed as part of the Ten Great Buildings project. Although these two building are very different from one another in terms of their function and internal design, their exteriors are nearly identical. This creates a symmetry between the opposing sides of Tiananmen Square and symbolized quite dramatically the CCP’s control over China’s past and present. ³⁶

Up until 2003, the National Museum of China itself was divided into two symmetrical parts. The northern end housed the historical collections and was called the Museum of Chinese History while the southern end housed collections and exhibitions having to do with contemporary and modern China, called the Museum of Chinese Revolution. The beginning of the First Opium War, 1839, marked the temporal divide between the territories of the two museums. Although both museums were housed in the same building, their institutionalized separation undoubtedly reflected the CCP’s idea of a radical revolutionary break between the past and the present. ³⁷ As noted above, this view of a rupture in history was the dominant paradigm during the Maoist era. In 2003, the two parts of the museum were united under its current name and, following a lengthy renovation (2007–11), are now fully integrated.

During the Republican period, the museum’s archaeological displays were not organized chronologically, but rather according to types of items and the materials used in their production (stone, jade, ceramics, bronze, and the like). This organization drew attention to shared cultural attributes and away from historical processes. Only after the museum’s reopening under communist rule did the displays become fixed by chronological timelines. The first exhibition under the communist model emphasized stages in the development of society: from primitive society dated from over 10,000 years ago to 4000 years ago; to slave society dated from the 21st century BCE to 476 BCE; and to feudalism from 476 BCE to 1840 CE. This division, which is clearly in line with the rupture paradigm, is found in the catalogue issued in 1976, the year of Mao’s death. ³⁸ The catalogue opens with four brief quotations drawn from the Communist Manifesto, Marx, Lenin, and Mao. The chapter on primitive society has an epigraph by Engels and the chapter on feudalism is packed with unattributed communist maxims.

This Marxist chronology is notably absent in the catalogue published just six years later, in 1982. Signifying an incipient return to traditional historiography and a shift of emphasis from the rupture model to one that emphasizes historical and cultural continuity, this catalogue is divided into chapters according to historical-archaeological periods: the Stone Age; the Bronze Age, defined as encompassing the traditional historiographic Xia, Shang, Western Zhou and the Spring and Autumn periods; and continuing through the various dynasties. ³⁹ Interestingly, Marxist terminology still appears occasionally in the catalogue’s introduction – for example, the Shang dynasty is compared to the period of slave society ⁴⁰ – but there is not a single quotation from Mao or Marx throughout, and the text is primarily a straightforward description of the museum’s history and of China’s important archaeological discoveries during the 20th century. The final paragraph in the 1982 catalogue states: ‘China is a state unifying many nationalities. The people of each nationality have created a glorious history together. The people of each of the nationalities have a wealth of cultural artefacts.’ ⁴¹ This inclusive approach to the sources of Chinese culture and to the contributions of each nationality (or ethnic group) to the common Chinese history is ubiquitous in China’s present-day archaeological and historical museums. Such inclusiveness is a crucial element of the continuity paradigm that integrates not only the past with the present, but also the traditional core with areas previously seen as peripheral.

Today, the permanent archaeological exhibition takes up the entire ground floor of the museum. The path through the exhibition’s rooms and halls meanders in a general north to south direction (Figure 1) and, although the structure of the museum building does not require such organization, the exhibition proceeds spatially along a single clear path that follows a chronological sequence, from the earliest hominid remains found in China (dated to some 1.6 million years ago) at the north entrance, to the final days of the imperial era at the south exit. One may enter and exit the exhibition only in three places: the entrance, exit, and at the centre, at a spot located chronologically after the early imperial period, just before the Sui and Tang dynasties.

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Figure 1.

Facade of the Chinese National Museum and map of the permanent archaeological exhibitions.

The structuring of visitors’ movements through this unbroken chronological sequence is, above all, a clear physical representation of the paradigm of Chinese cultural continuity. The very name of the exhibition, ‘Ancient China’, highlights this paradigm, as do the texts accompanying the exhibition. These explicitly discuss cultural continuity and the links between China’s most ancient past and its present-day national and cultural identity.

The English introduction at the entrance to the exhibition is worded thus:

The exhibition focuses on the continuous progress of Chinese civilization and the historical course of building a multi-ethnic country. It also illustrates the Chinese people’s outstanding achievements and their contributions to human civilization.

The Chinese introduction uses the term Zhonghua minzu (中华民族) for the Chinese nation. This term, championed by Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao at the beginning of the 20th century, is a clear signal of inclusiveness. It does not refer to the Han or any specific ethnic group, but rather to anyone who is part of the Chinese state today.

The continuous progression of Chinese culture, the integration of various ethnic groups and geographic regions, and Chinese contributions to world culture are the three central themes underlying the entire exhibition. From a rather small room dedicated to the Palaeolithic period, visitors move into an extremely large hall dedicated to the Neolithic period, from about 8000 to 4000 years ago. Although some of the key characteristics of this period are, in fact, cultural diversity and lack of political unity, and parallel developments of social, technological and religious patterns in different parts of China, ⁴² these are barely acknowledged in the organization of the displays and in the accompanying explanations. The exhibits in this hall are organized by topics, such as evidence of socio-economic structures, burial traditions, technologies, vessels and objects of various types or materials, and more. In each of the display cases devoted to a topic, artefacts from various regions of China are arranged with no reference to the unique characteristics of each region. Although the origin of each artefact is mentioned in the description attached to it, the overall impression created by this conglomeration is that a fairly common Chinese culture already existed across regions thousands of kilometres apart in this very early period.

The descriptions are, for the most part, brief and technical. For example, the explanatory text preceding the pottery display remarks that China is the earliest place of ceramics production in the world, and it then goes on to describe various pottery production techniques. The labels for each item in the displays are concise and informative (place, date, type, material) without additional interpretations. The only text that might be viewed as somewhat ideological is titled ‘The Development Process of Chinese Civilization during the Neolithic Period’. The last part of this panel reads:

Chinese culture developed as an organic whole with diverse parts. By absorbing cultural advancements in neighbouring areas, the Central Plains progressed towards civilization. Legends from that time about tribe leaders like Yandi, Huangdi (Yellow Emperor), Yao, Shun, and Yu are found in ancient Chinese writings.

This concise description contains all the elements of the continuity paradigm: a unified ‘Chinese’ culture that integrates the contribution of different regions and ethnic groups but is directly associated, even during prehistoric periods, with the traditional Chinese texts written thousands of years later.

The next two exhibit halls are devoted to the Bronze Era – an exhibit on the Xia, Shang, and Western Zhou periods and an exhibit on the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods – and are similarly organized according to topics. Here too, one finds a wealth of technical detail alongside a closer adherence to the traditional historical narrative. The explanatory texts mention figures such as Yu who, according to the mythology, conquered a great flood, or political entities such as the Xia dynasty, of which no physical evidence has been found to date. These references denoting an unquestioning acceptance of the traditional narrative are far from unusual and are characteristic not just of museum exhibitions in China but also of much of the academic scholarship on these periods.

Although the geographical territory identified at present with China was during the periods in question divided into multiple political and cultural units that were often at war with one another, the Bronze Era exhibits also frequently throw together artefacts from very different and distant places. For example, in the exhibit hall devoted to the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (771–221 BCE) – a time most famously characterized by increasingly virulent wars between the different states – the texts refer to those ruptures as an ethnic issue, using vague definitions drawn from the classics and emphasizing integration among various peoples. One of the explanatory texts, for example, reads:

During the Spring and Autumn period, the people of the central plains called themselves Zhuxia while the peoples in the periphery called themselves Man, Yi, Rong, and Di. When the relationships between the states of the central plains became more intimate during the Spring and Autumn period and the early Warring States, most of the Man, Yi, Rong, and Di intermingled with the Zhuxia, which was the basis for the establishment of a state unifying many peoples.

Terms such as feudalism, which were central to the Marxist doctrine and continued to appear in exhibition texts up until the very end of the 20th century, are completely absent today. What takes place in this exhibition is a fascinating synthesis of a very traditional depiction grounded in classical historical narratives that draw on both mythology and history, with a focus on ‘integration’ between ‘peoples’. Even the descriptions of these peoples, moreover, draws more on traditional names and mythical or stereotyping descriptions, and less on concrete economic, social, religious and cultural analyses of the societies in different regions of China as they appear in the archaeological record.

The Liaoning Provincial Museum in Shenyang ⁴³

The Liaoning Provincial Museum’s official narrative identifies its origins in the period when the region was part of Manchukuo (1931–45), the Manchurian puppet state established by the Japanese occupiers. According to this narrative, the museum was established as Manchuria’s national museum in 1933. After the conclusion of the Second World War and the Republican capture of the region, the museum was reopened in 1946 as the National Shenyang Museum for Antiquities. Shortly thereafter, the region fell into communist hands, and museum authorities boast that it was the first museum opened by the communist leadership in 1949, even before the People’s Republic of China was officially declared. ⁴⁴ This was when the museum was expanded and renamed the Northeast Museum. In 1959, as part of the museum reforms in the period of the Great Leap Forward, it was first named the Liaoning Provincial Museum.

The Liaoning Provincial Museum has undergone a series of additional reconstructions and expansions since the 1980s. The original building was restored and expanded in 1983, and in 1997 construction of a new building was commenced as part of a cultural district in the centre of town, on the plaza on the eastern side of Shenyang’s government buildings – a location greatly reminiscent of the location of the National Museum in the heart of Beijing. The museum moved into its new residence – a monumental three-storey structure with 12 exhibition halls covering 8531 square metres of floor space – in 2004.

When I visited the museum in the autumn of 2014, construction had already begun on an even larger and grander museum, with plans for 22 exhibition halls covering a total space of 24,100 square metres, on the outskirts of Shenyang. ⁴⁵ When I returned in the spring of 2015, the museum in the centre of town had been shuttered and the transfer of the exhibitions to the new museum had begun. This massive investment in the museum is apparently a process common to all or nearly all Chinese provinces, where lavish new museums built at significant cost have recently been opened.

The majority of the archaeological artefacts on display or in storage at the museum were discovered in excavations carried out across Liaoning Province. The exhibition of these artefacts today, ⁴⁶ in one of the museum’s few permanent displays, spans the entire third storey of the building and includes 1541 artefacts. The exhibition is titled ‘Civilization of Liao River’ (辽河文明), denoting a certain differentiation from general Chinese civilization. Earlier museum catalogues, from 1984 and 1994, ⁴⁷ do not mention the civilization of the Liao River basin, although they do emphasize the distinct characteristics of the region’s civilizations. This change is perhaps a sign of a growing emphasis on the local identity of the museum and an attempt to clearly differentiate it from the National Museum. Both early catalogues are arranged according to the materials used in making artefacts (bronze vessels, ceramic and porcelain, etc.) rather than along a single timeline. This organization may represent an emphasis on culture as opposed to the historical narrative elevated at the National Museum.

Today, exhibits at the Liaoning Provincial Museum are arranged chronologically. However, unlike the National Museum which imposes a single continuous timeline that also directs the movements of visitors through the exhibition, the Liao River Civilization exhibition does not cover all periods, and it is arranged in sections which lend themselves to a visit that does not necessarily follow a chronological order. This organization is much less linear and allows for a more cultural approach to local history. The exhibition spans five separate halls, each of which is dedicated to a specific period: the Palaeolithic and Neolithic periods (titled the ‘Dawn of Civilization’); the Bronze Age (titled the ‘Northern Territories of Shang and Zhou’); imperial unification and the early imperial era (titled ‘Unification of Chinese Civilization’); the Liao dynasty (907–1125) (titled the ‘Khitan Dynasty’); and the late-imperial era (titled the ‘Rise of the Manchus’) (Figure 2).

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Figure 2.

Facade of the Liaoning Provincial Museum and map of the third floor housing the permanent archaeological exhibits.

A local perspective is emphasized in each of these exhibits, though the names of the prehistoric and early historic exhibits reference the greater Chinese context. The two exhibitions dedicated to the middle- and late-imperial periods also emphasize local history over national history quite explicitly. No less significant is the fact that several periods are not represented in the exhibition at all, for example, the Mongolian conquest (the Yuan dynasty, 1271–1368). This omission marks a deliberately selective approach.

The message relayed throughout the exhibition and its accompanying texts is not one of differentiation, however, but rather one of belonging to Chinese civilization. The texts fully accept the traditional narrative, including references to mythic figures such as the Five Emperors who are seen as the forefathers of the Chinese nation. Nonetheless, along with this uncritical acceptance of the pan-Chinese narrative, the exhibition’s texts also emphasize the unique features of local culture and history. Local cultural uniqueness is not presented, at least not explicitly, in contrast to general Chinese culture, but rather as contributing to it significantly and in some cases even as its source.

A prominent example of this perspective is the display on the origins of the Chinese dragon symbol, taking up an entire wall in the exhibition’s first hall. The classic Chinese dragon is a mythical creature composed of different animal parts. Throughout the imperial period, the dragon symbol was associated with power, masculine energy (yang), and good fortune. Certain types of dragons were an imperial prerogative and appeared exclusively on the Emperor’s clothes, palaces and possessions. ⁴⁸ Today the dragon is one of the most ubiquitous symbols of Chinese people and culture. According to the explanatory texts and illustrations at the Liaoning Provincial Museum, the source of this all-important symbol is in the Liao River region. Its earliest appearances are identified on ceramic pottery dated to approximately 8000 years ago, found in the early agricultural settlement of the Xinglongwa culture. Carved jade artefacts from approximately 5000 to 6500 years ago, identified with a culture known as Hongshan, are – according to the museum’s narrative – the ultimate early representation of the dragon symbol and the peak in its evolution during China’s Neolithic Period (Figure 3). Indeed, the practice of carving artefacts, pendants and statues from jade is described in the museum displays as a Chinese practice originating in the region. I argue that such appropriation of symbols and practices at the core of the Chinese tradition is central to the museum’s project and reflects a subtle but clear construction of local pride and identity.

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Figure 3.

A ‘jade dragon’, attributed to the Hongshan culture. Height: 26 cm.

The unique cultural contributions of the Liao River region to the development of Chinese civilization do not end with prehistory. According to the Liaoning Provincial Museum, they continue into later eras, including periods during which states with distinctly local ethnic characteristics ruled over the region and fought with the Chinese dynasties at the centre. Similar to the National Chinese Museum, there is a powerful emphasis on the multi-ethnic nature of the region’s society (and of China as a whole). But, in contrast to the National Museum, where ethnic minorities are mentioned in the abstract, in Liaoning much effort was expended on identifying the different ethnic groups and their specific characteristics as precisely as possible. In the museum’s most recent catalogue, the cultures of ‘horse-riding northern ethnicities’ are subdivided into six groups: Xiongnu, Xianbei, Gaogouli (or Goguryeo), Qidan, Nuzhen (or Jurchen), and Man (or Manchus). The catalogue describes each people’s distinctive technologies, illustrious cultures and unique contributions to the development of Chinese civilization. ⁴⁹

The museum’s narrative does not deny complementary influences flowing in the opposite direction, from China’s central regions out to Liaoning, but there is an emphasis throughout the exhibition on bolstering local pride and highlighting the distinctive contributions of the region’s cultures to Chinese civilization. Interestingly, it is not just the contributions of local cultures to civilizations within the borders of present-day China that are enumerated, but also cultural contributions to territories presently in Japan and Korea. Thus, for example, the Bronze Age spread of weapons such as short metal blade swords originating in Liaoning to these territories is part of the exhibition.

Conclusions

In this discussion of Chinese museums and the permanent archaeological exhibitions in the National Museum of China and the Liaoning Provincial Museum, I have attempted to illustrate the ways in which the Chinese past, and the distant past in particular, is presented and how changes over time and variation between state-level and provincial-level museums reflect diachronic and synchronic processes. The main trend I have identified is the development of an inclusive view of Chinese history and culture, and the presentation of the past in the archaeological exhibitions as a continuous process shaping a unified Chinese culture. This process is described not only as the accumulation and evolution of core Chinese attributes and symbols through time, but also as a synthesis between different regions within China and between varied ethnic and cultural groups. This approach is most clearly illustrated in the organization and content of the archaeological exhibition at the National Museum analysed above in detail.

The approach which views Chinese culture as a monolithic entity drawing on multiple sources and encompassing a broad cultural and ethnic diversity is hardly new. It was already endorsed by the Manchurian rulers of the Qing dynasty at the twilight of the imperial era; they understood it as providing legitimation to their reign and to the integration of the various populations under their rule. ⁵⁰ However, by the turn of the 20th century, with the demise of the Qing and the rise of Western-style nationalism, the ethnocentric approach identifying Chinese history and culture with a specific ethnic group (the Han people) became dominant.

After 1949, representations of the past in archaeological museums, as well as in textbooks, literature, cinema and the like, were characterized by a Marxist historiography which presents history as a series of inevitable revolutions leading up to communism. The Marxist perspective is clearly evident in the structure and emphases of archaeological exhibitions and catalogues from this era. At the same time, the focus during this period was on the identification of the glorious Chinese past with core areas within China (mainly the Yellow River basin) and with the Han ethnic group. Politically, this approach is epitomized in the distinction made between the Han majority and 55 minority ethnic groups, each with its own linguistic and cultural heritage. National minority cultures were placed in the spotlight and attempts were made to preserve and present them to the general public – after all, one of the Ten Great Buildings constructed in honour of the 10th anniversary of the People’s Republic was the Cultural Palace of Nationalities. ⁵¹ However, the physical and thematic distancing of the history and culture of minorities from the history of the Chinese people is also embedded in this approach.

In the above analysis I point to a process that, to a certain extent, returns to the political and historical perspectives of the imperial era while incorporating powerful nationalist characteristics. This process is discernible in the presentation of archaeological artefacts in the National Museum and the Liaoning Provincial Museum from the beginning of the 1980s. On the one hand, the Marxist model of historical revolutions was abandoned, giving way to a model of continuity that is quite similar to the classical model and even adopts many heroes of the classical era, including mythical figures such as the Five Emperors and quasi-historical entities such as the Xia dynasty. On the other hand, the narrowly nationalist model, which identified national identity with Chinese ethnic identity, gave way to an inclusive model similar to the late-imperial paradigm. This continuity paradigm views Chinese culture and history as an accumulative process whereby each era, including the remote Neolithic, contributes new attributes and elaborates on the contributions of previous eras, as well as a cross-regional synthesis of various sources. The regional traditions are identified with different peoples and nationalities, each of which contributes something to the creation of a common Chinese identity.

This new ideological cover enables the consolidation of a common national narrative that supports a Chinese territorial and national unity inclusive of distant and culturally distinct regions such as Xinjiang and Tibet. This is deployed together with national pride, an important component of public discourse during the decline of communist ideology. At the same time, I also argue that viewing this as a one-sided top–down process is too simplistic. The described paradigms are open-ended enough to allow the existence of local narratives at the provincial and more local levels. The significant financial investment in various Chinese provincial museums reveals not only economic and political power – which has to a certain extent devolved from the centre to provincial authorities – but also the need to provide the process of decentralization (as limited as it may be) with cultural and historical legitimacy. The delicate balance between the centre’s dominance and local autonomy finds expression in the design of museums and their placement adjacent to government buildings as well as in the content of exhibitions in provincial museums.

My discussion of the archaeological exhibition at the Liaoning Provincial Museum demonstrates the construction of a local narrative and how, on the one hand, it accepts the pan-Chinese worldview while, on the other hand, it subtly emphasizes the unique local identity. In this context, local pride is not set against general Chinese culture, but rather presented as an inseparable part of it. The appropriation of core Chinese elements, such as the dragon, is one way of bridging the national and local aspects of this identity. The attempt, sometimes forced, to demonstrate the significance of local culture in the development of Chinese civilization does not merely enable local identification with the centre: it sometimes even succeeds in diverting the centre of Chinese identity from its traditional place in the Yellow River basin to regions previously viewed as peripheral. While this appropriation of history and culture ostensibly challenges the classical historical narrative, it in fact successfully shapes a type of local identity that is not perceived as subversive of the currently accepted narrative.

Although this article deals with just the two highest levels of China’s administration – the state and the provincial levels – the processes in question filter through to lower levels, such as districts and county towns. The construction of museums in such places, and investments in them by local authorities and private entrepreneurs, ⁵² is indicative of the growth of local-level patriotism and identities. Similar to the provincial level, here too we see a combination of local pride with pan-Chinese patriotism. Further studies of such local museums can contribute to a deeper understanding of these complex processes taking place in China today.