China News Service, Chengdu, January 20th: Question: What kind of mutual learning between Eastern and Western civilizations has the stone "Han Shu" witnessed?

　　——Exclusive interview with Luo Erhu, professor of the Department of Archeology, School of History and Culture, Sichuan University

　　China News Service reporter He Shaoqing

　　The Han Dynasty stone tower is one of the earliest and best-preserved ancient ground-level buildings in China. It is known as the stone "Han Shu" and can be called a living fossil of ancient Chinese architecture.

At present, there are 43 Han palaces in China, including 21 in Sichuan and 6 in Chongqing. Therefore, there is a saying that "there are many Han palaces in Bashu and Bashu in the world".

　　When did the Que as a building originate?

What kind of exchanges and mutual learning between Eastern and Western civilizations has the stone "Han Shu" witnessed?

Luo Erhu, professor and doctoral supervisor of the Department of Archeology, School of History and Culture, Sichuan University, recently accepted an exclusive interview with China News Service's "East-West Question" to explain this.

The interview transcript is summarized as follows:

China News Service reporter: What is the meaning of the word "que"?

When can the Que as a building be traced back to the earliest times?

What are the differences between Ques in different periods?

Luo Erhu:

"Que" and "que" are connected in ancient China. Xu Shen explained it in "Shuowen Jiezi" as "door view", which mainly refers to a high-rise building on each side of the door, leaving a gap in the middle. , for passage, so it is called "queran is the road".

"Xiang Wei" in "Zhou Rites", "Two Views" in "Spring and Autumn", and "Guantai" in "Zuo Zhuan" are all Que.

　　The Que can be traced back to the Neolithic Age. In order to prevent the invasion of wild beasts and other tribes, people dug trenches and built fences around tribal settlements. To facilitate entry and exit, they also made gaps in the fence, and built fortresses on both sides of the gap in the fence. A wooden building for lookouts and guards.

　　Que has begun to appear in early pre-Qin literature.

Ques also appear in large numbers in the Book of Songs, Zuozhuan, Guoyu, and the collections of pre-Qin scholars, such as "Tiao Xi Da Xi, Que Xi in the City".

The gate in the large miniature landscape of Liuyi City in Qufu City, Jining, Shandong Province.

Photo by Xu Wenhao

　　Que ushered in its most prosperous period in the Qin and Han Dynasties. It was not only a high-rise building, but also a reflection of the hierarchical system at that time - the emperor used three ques, officials at the prefect level used two ques, and ordinary officials used a single que.

As Ban Gu said in "White Tiger Tongyi": "What is the reason why the door must have a gap? The gap is so that the door is decorated to show respect and inferiority."

　　After the Wei and Jin Dynasties, Que gradually declined, but some images of Que were still found in archaeological objects.

After the Tang and Song Dynasties, city towers, temple towers and tomb towers gradually withdrew from the stage of history, with only the main entrance of the palace still in use.

Strictly speaking, today the Meridian Gate of the Forbidden City in Beijing also has the image of a que, but it has been integrated with the building rather than existing alone as a que.

　　Although physical Ques no longer became popular after the Qin and Han Dynasties, as an important element of Chinese culture, Ques have a profound presence in artistic works, especially in Buddhist murals and Tang poetry and Song lyrics, such as "The sky is like a latitude, and the clouds are lying in cold clothes." "The city palace assists the Three Qin Dynasties, and the wind and smoke look out to Wujin." "I don't know what year it is today for the palace palace in the sky."

Reporter from China News Service: Why is Han Que called the stone "Han Shu"?

Luo Erhu:

Hanque is a national art that integrates architecture, sculpture, painting, and calligraphy. The information it contains is the research object of history, cultural relics, fine arts, architectural history, calligraphy, religious history and other disciplines. It is of great value to the study of Han Dynasty architectural culture, ideological culture, and social culture.

Hanque models of different levels and types are on display at the Hanque Cultural Museum in Qu County, Dazhou City, Sichuan Province.

Photo by Zhang Lang

　　The objects recorded in the official history of the Han Dynasty were mainly the upper class at that time, and the portrait stones carved on the Han Dynasty Palace truly reproduced many aspects of the Han people's clothing, food, housing, behavior, etiquette, etc., providing future generations with various social classes and life in the Han Dynasty. Very vivid information that makes up for the lack of documentation.

　　The Han Dynasty was the heyday of palace construction in China. Capitals, palaces, mausoleums, ancestral temples, and cemeteries of officials and civilians with certain status could all build palaces according to certain levels.

Hanque reflects the political and historical view of the Han Dynasty and completely displays the various structures of Han Dynasty architecture, including majestic buildings (city palaces and palace palaces), mansion palaces (residence palaces), sacred temples (ancestral temples), and Shengtianmen (shengtianmen). Tomb Que) and other meanings, so we say Han Que is a stone "Han Shu".

　　There are currently about 43 known Han palaces in China, and more than 20 are located in the Bashu region. However, this does not mean that the Bashu region had the largest number of palaces in China during the Han Dynasty.

Generally, Han tombs have gates on all four sides, and the gates must have gates. However, most imperial tombs of the Han Dynasty in China have not been excavated.

"Shui Jing Zhu" once recorded in detail all kinds of palaces in the Central Plains of the Han Dynasty, but these Han palaces have disappeared in the long river of history.

One of the reasons is that wars in the Central Plains were more frequent than in the Bashu and Bashu regions, and the damage to the Han palaces was greater. Therefore, the number of Han palaces preserved in the Central Plains is less than that in the Bashu.

In 2003, due to the construction of the Three Gorges Reservoir, they were relocated to the Dingfang Que and Wuming Que of the Li Bai Memorial Hall.

Photo by Wang Zhiyong

China News Service reporter: What kind of cultural exchanges and mutual learning between the East and the West has the development and changes of Shique witnessed?

Luo Erhu:

Between 7000 and 6000 years ago, many ancient buildings marked by huge stone structures appeared in Europe. This is also called "big stone ruins" or "megalithic culture".

China's stone culture also has a long history. Sarcophagus tombs appeared in the south-central part of Inner Mongolia 7,000 years ago, and sarcophagus tombs were also discovered in southwestern China between 5,000 and 4,000 years ago.

　　But compared with the West, stone culture was not particularly popular in the early days of Chinese civilization.

The Han Dynasty was the most popular period of stone culture in China.

Among them, the Han Dynasty tombs and ancestral temples with the nature of monuments were influenced by the cultural exchanges and mutual learning between the East and the West.

Monumental stone buildings were common in early Europe, such as temples in Athens, Egypt, and ancient Greece, as well as the portrait stones on sarcophagi in Roman tombs.

　　European "big stone ruins" first appeared in Western Europe, and then gradually spread eastward.

From 5000 to 4000 years ago, "big stone ruins" appeared in Siberia and even Japan.

This kind of upright large stone spread to Central Asia, Xinjiang, East Asia and other places through the Eurasian steppes, and also spread to the Bashu region.

For example, the stone statues on the grasslands in northern Xinjiang, the ring-shaped stones in Japan, and the loom stones, five stones, and Tianya stones in Chengdu all belong to the category of large stone relics.

These all had an indirect impact on the emergence of upright large stone architectural relics such as stone towers in the Han Dynasty.

Before the Han Dynasty, inspired by Western stone architectural art on Chinese architecture, a cultural transmission belt of "big stone ruins" was formed that passed through Northeast China, to Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Qinghai and then to Southwest China.

The use of stone in building palaces in China also became popular during the Han Dynasty.

Feng Huanque is located in Qu County, Dazhou City, Sichuan Province.

Photo by Zhang Lang

　　The research and protection of Hanque in modern times also bear witness to the cultural exchanges between the East and the West.

As early as the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, Sha Wan, the then "European Sinology Master", visited Shandong, Henan, and Sichuan to inspect Hanques, and introduced ancient Chinese art, including Hanques, to the West.

　　Under the influence of Shawan, French scholar Xie Gelan (formerly translated as "Sejialan") came to China to search for Hanque.

From 1914 to 1917, Xie Gelan discovered a number of Hanques in the Bashu region and conducted a systematic study and classification of Hanques.

Xie Gelan published photos of Han palaces to the world in "Chinese Archaeological Survey Catalog" (1923, 1924) and "Han Dynasty Tomb Art" (1935), triggering the "Han Que fever" in the West.

　　The investigation of Hanque by Chinese scholars began in the 1930s.

Scholars from the Chinese Society of Architecture, represented by Liang Sicheng, Liu Dunzhen, and Chen Mingda, used modern Western academic research methods to conduct a systematic investigation of Hanque in southwest China.

However, due to war and other reasons, many academic research results were not officially published until after the founding of New China.

In June 2013, archaeological experts inspected Feng Huanque in Qu County.

Photo by Wu Tao

China News Service reporter: What difficulties are faced with the protection of Hanque now?

Do you have any suggestions for the protection of Hanque?

Luo Erhu:

As a living fossil of ancient Chinese architecture, Hanque has extremely high artistic and humanistic values.

Japan's "Complete Collection of Calligraphy" once included the inscriptions on Junque of Shen Mansion in Qu County, Dazhou City, Sichuan, and the rubbings were "worth a hundred gold" in the late Qing Dynasty.

The architectural beauty of Feng Huanque in Qu County, Dazhou City, Sichuan was praised by Liang Sicheng as "simple and elegant, with only a few people, and it is the only masterpiece among the Han Dynasty palaces".

　　Pingyang Que in Mianyang, Sichuan has been damaged in history. In the third year of Liang Datong (529 AD), Buddhists used local materials to carve 33 Buddhist statues on the Que. Xie Gelan called it "the oldest and most precious monument in Sichuan". "Buddhist relics" are "the only Buddhist inscriptions from the Liang Dynasty in Sichuan that have survived to this day".

Pingyang Tower in Mianyang, Sichuan.

Photo courtesy of Mianyang Municipal Party Committee Propaganda Department

　　The Gaoyi Palace in Ya'an, Sichuan is the pinnacle of the Han Dynasty stone portraits.

Lu Xun not only hand-painted Gao Yique, but also collected more than 600 stone rubbings of Han Dynasty portraits such as Hanque.

Lu Xun believed that "only the stone carvings of the Han people are deep and majestic"; the existence of the Han Que was due to "the power of art to last forever."

Ya'an Gao Yique (2000).

Photo by Du Feibao

　　When people visit Gao Yique today, they may find that Gao Yique is slightly different from when it was hand-painted by Lu Xun.

This is because stone cultural relics are greatly affected by climate, especially acid rain.

At present, different levels of protection methods have been adopted for Hanques across China. The most common protection method is to build buildings outside Hanques to "shield them from wind and rain".

The Han Tower has stood between heaven and earth for thousands of years. These buildings that protect the Han Tower can slow down the damage caused by natural factors, but at the same time, they also change the environmental atmosphere created by the ancients and interfere with the audience's appreciation of the beauty of the Han Tower.

How to better protect ancient stone buildings without affecting the viewing effect of these cultural relics itself is a difficult issue for cultural relic protection around the world.

(over)

Interviewee profile:

　　Luo Erhu is currently a professor and doctoral supervisor in the Department of Archeology, School of History and Culture, Sichuan University.

Vice president of the Chinese Painting Society of China.

He has presided over major research projects of the Key Research Base of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education of China, National Social Science Fund Projects, Archaeological Projects of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, Asia-related Projects of the Sumitomo Foundation of Japan, Three Gorges Archaeological Projects, South-to-North Water Diversion Archaeological Projects, etc., and participated in many projects of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. A scientific research project.

The research fields mainly involve art archeology and ancient art, historical archeology, prehistoric archeology, southwestern China archeology, etc.