Our reporter Zhang Fan
Ancient books are non-renewable treasures, and they are also the textual witnesses of China's 5,000-year history.
Recently, the first Chinese ancient book revitalization documentary "Ancient Books Through Time and Space" was launched.
The film tells the story of scholars and artists repairing ancient books, interpreting the contents of ancient books, and making ancient books "live".
In the first episode "Feast in Ancient Books", gourmet Lu Ran restored more than 300 Song Dynasty delicacies such as "Crab Stuffed Orange" and "Steamed Duck" according to the records of ancient books.
In the following story, clothing historian Chen Shiyu verified ancient clothing through ancient books, and restored the plane archaeological data into three-dimensional shapes.
In addition, Mr. Satan, who used a brush to outline the mythical beasts in "The Classic of Mountains and Seas", Ying Yonghui, who designed more than 40,000 artistic characters with ancient book fonts as the master, and Zhang Yu who looked for artistic inspiration in "The Peony Pavilion", their stories are also will be featured in the documentary.
In addition to paying attention to the people who interpret the content of ancient books, the film also focuses on the researchers of ancient books.
In the second episode "Civilization of Splicing and Tearing", Zhang Yongquan, director of the Dunhuang Studies Research Center of Zhejiang University, spliced and combined the fragments of Dunhuang scattered around the world to realize the "reunion" of ancient books thousands of years ago.
"Ancient Books Through Time and Space" also records the collection of 25,000 family trees by the folk collector Li Shuangjie, the rescue, translation and arrangement of Dongba ancient books by Li Dejing, director of the Dongba Cultural Research Institute, and the restoration of the "Yongle Grand Ceremony" by Du Weisheng of the National Map Ancient Book Restoration Center. The story of the "Lake" booklet.
Wan Qun, a researcher at Tianjin Library and a national-level instructor of ancient book restoration techniques, has been engaged in ancient book restoration for many years, and she is also a representative inheritor of municipal-level intangible cultural heritage restoration techniques.
In her opinion, precious ancient books are connected with the cultural lifeline. The restoration of ancient books is not only to preserve the original appearance of history, but also to allow modern people to gain more cultural power from the words recorded by the ancients.
"Ancient Books Through Time and Space" records many people and stories about the restoration of ancient books, and also gives many young audiences a more intuitive and vivid understanding of this unpopular intangible cultural heritage skill.
Wan Qun said: "As the society pays more and more attention to the protection of traditional culture, the knowledge of ancient book restoration techniques has become more and more popular. Every year, we take various opportunities to go out, such as the activities of intangible cultural heritage entering the campus. The public will carry out the dissemination of ancient book protection and ancient book restoration knowledge. In addition, we will regularly plan and organize exhibitions related to ancient book protection and restoration every year.”
What does the restoration of ancient books look like in reality?
Wan Qun told reporters a typical restoration case: they once restored a batch of Dunhuang documents in the collection, which were donated by the great collector Zhou Shutao.
There are more than 200 pieces (pieces) of this batch of document fragments, and the overall restoration is relatively difficult, and its collection level is also relatively high.
This restoration has preserved a batch of precious Dunhuang documents for Tiantu. During the restoration process, they have also achieved results in the identification of ancient paper, leaving behind a lot of valuable research data for monitoring and analysis of ancient paper.
Wan Qun said that the restoration of ancient books requires not only profound professional skills, but also boldness and meticulousness. "There are more than 200 pieces of Dunhuang documents in total, and their paper presents a variety of characteristics, and the raw materials are not consistent. Many of the documents in the batch are fragments, the large ones are 50 to 60 centimeters long, and the small ones are only a few centimeters. Some are torn and ruptured, and some are rotten, polluted, mildewed, and have special disease conditions. We use traditional restoration techniques. , the purpose is 'fine and slow', every wormhole, every eyelet, every torn part, patch it up perfectly."