Dongxi asked 丨Yang Bonde: Why did the Chongqing White Crane Liang inscription jointly apply for the World Heritage Site with the Egyptian Nile ruler stone carving?

Chongqing, 6 June (ZXS) -- Why did the inscription of the White Crane Liang in Chongqing jointly apply for the World Heritage Site with the Egyptian Nile ruler stone carving?

——Interview with Yang Bangde, director of Chongqing Baiheliang Underwater Museum

Written by Liang Qinqing

The Baiheliang Underwater Museum, located in Fuling District, Chongqing, is the world's first non-diving underwater heritage museum. The White Crane Beam is a 1600,1200-meter-long natural stone beam in the Yangtze River, which is inscribed with a record of dry water hydrology in the Fuling section of the Yangtze River for more than <>,<> years, which is of great scientific value, and the site is currently jointly declared as a world cultural heritage with the Nile ruler stone carvings in Egypt.

Why did the White Crane Liang inscription choose to jointly apply for the World Heritage Site with the Egyptian Nile ruler stone carving? What are the implications of the millennium history of hydrological monitoring for the response to hydrological disasters in today's world? Yang Bangde, director of Chongqing Baiheliang Underwater Museum, recently accepted an exclusive interview with China News Agency's "East-West Question".

The following is a summary of the interview:

China News Agency: As the world's sites recording ancient hydrology, what are the characteristics of the Chinese White Crane Liang inscription and the Egyptian Nile ruler stone carving?

Yang Bonde: White crane beam is a natural stone beam located in the Yangtze River north of the city in Fuling District, Chongqing, according to legend, in ancient times, white cranes often frolicked on the beam, so it was called White Crane Liang. There are 165 inscriptions on the beam, 18 tails of stone fish, 2 statues of Guanyin, and 1 white crane, of which 108 are inscribed with hydrological value, recording the dry water hydrological data of 764 years in more than 1200 years since the second year of Tang Guangde (72 AD), and is known as "the world's first ancient hydrological station".

White Crane Beam Underwater Museum. Photo by He Penglei

There is a folk saying in the Fuling area, "The white crane leaves a trail around the beam, and the stone fish comes out of the water for a trillion years". Since the Tang Dynasty, the ancients used the way of carving stone fish to engrave the dry water level on the rock wall of Baiheliang, and the invention of carving fish as a ruler and marking water is called the stone fish water mark, which is a unique innovation in the world's major river basins, and provides physical evidence for the study of the hydrology of the Yangtze River, the historical law of regional and global climate change. The ancients analyzed the hydrological data and found that the flood and dry water of the Yangtze River is a cycle of about every 10 years, and the "stone fish out of the water" can be considered that the dry cycle has passed, the harvest year is coming, and the next year will be full of rain and abundant grains.

The Nile River Basin in the ancient Egyptian era is one of the earliest basins in the world to observe water levels, and the Nile River water level measurement history is more than 5000,1300 years, and it has been recorded for more than <>,<> years. As early as BC, the priests of Egyptian temples invented a water level measuring scale as a tool to measure the water level of the Nile, later known as the "Nile ruler", which determined the amount of tax by the relationship between the water level and the harvest of crops.

There were at least 20 Nile rulers on the Nile, which were spaced along the river, and water level records were kept in the archives of palaces and temples. The existing Nile ruler is mainly located in the upper and lower reaches of the Nile River, showing multi-point distribution characteristics, mainly including three forms: the first is a column submerged vertically in the river, and the column has a scale to indicate the amount of water; The second is a section of steps leading to the river, with scales carved on the walls on either side of the steps; The third is to observe by placing the Nile ruler in a well or pool of a temple on the shore, connecting it to the Nile water through a long-distance channel or culvert, and then channeling the water into a well, pool or tank.

The docent of the Baiheliang Underwater Museum introduces visitors to the Nile River Basin water level measurement scale - "Nile ruler". Photo by He Penglei

China News Agency: Egypt is far from China, why did the White Crane Liang inscription choose to jointly declare a world cultural heritage with the Nile ruler stone carving?

Yang Bonde: China and Egypt are the hydrological heritage countries in the world that still retain the physical remains of water level observation, and the Chinese White Crane Liang inscription in Chongqing and the Egyptian Nile ruler stone inscription are located on the world's major rivers, both are relics of ancient hydrological facilities, representing the close relationship between two different agricultural civilizations in Asia and Africa and river water resources.

Visitors view underwater inscriptions through the observation window at the Baiheliang Underwater Museum. Photo by He Penglei

The White Crane Liang inscription and the Nile ruler stone inscription are extremely closely intrinsically linked: both are physical remains and witnesses of the longest human-water relationship in ancient times, and both are the early wisdom of agricultural civilization to measure water and water, and both provide detailed scientific data for thousands of years of climate change. The joint application of the two countries will help promote exchanges and mutual learning among world civilizations and create a new model for the protection of world heritage.

As early as 2021, the School of Archaeology and Museum of Peking University and the UNESCO Asia-Pacific World Heritage Training and Research Center took the lead in completing the project of "Annotation of the White Crane Liang" and "Research on the Value of the White Crane Liang Inscription", and launched the feasibility study of the joint application of hydrological heritage between China and Egypt.

At present, the proposal of joint application for the World Heritage Site between China and Egypt has also started, and Bai Heliang is establishing a working mechanism for joint application with Egyptian non-governmental and official sites. Baiheliang, which has been included in the "Tentative List of World Cultural Heritage of China", has continuously improved the requirements for inscription: first, it continues to submit applications for inscription; The second is to re-fill the declaration form and submit relevant materials; The third is to continue to improve the "White Crane Liang Inscription Inscription Text", communicate with the Egyptian side on the docking situation, and strive to start the compilation of the "Egyptian Nile Ruler Stone Carving-Chinese White Crane Liang Inscription Joint Inscription Text" as soon as possible.

The inscription "White Crane Liang" is photographed through the observation window of the White Crane Liang Underwater Museum. Photo by He Penglei

China News Agency: The ancients who lived by the water created a lot of culture on the waterfront, but many of them sank underwater. What is the importance of the Baiheliang artifacts, and what kind of protection has China put in place to allow them to "go underwater for thousands of years"? What lessons does this provide for the protection of the world's underwater cultural heritage?

Yang Bonde: In addition to its hydrological value, the Baiheliang inscription also has important historical and artistic value, and is known as the "underwater stele forest". Liangshang contains the remains of literati from all schools since the Tang and Song Dynasties, and the fonts include seal, subordinate, line, kai, and grass, and the calligraphy style Yan, Liu, Ou and Su are all complete, which is a treasure of Chinese calligraphy art and stone carving art. The Northern Song Dynasty literati Huang Tingjian left "Yuan Fu Gengchen Fu Weng Lai" here, in addition to the inscriptions of Zhu Ang, Liu Zhongshun, Chao Gongwu, Qin Jiushao, Wang Shizhen and other literati and inkers, and the white crane liang with more than 10,000 characters inscribed has become a unique record carrier of Chinese art.

The white crane beam is inscribed with the original appearance. Photo courtesy of Chongqing Baiheliang Underwater Museum

As early as 1974, the International Hydrological Conference jointly convened by UNESCO and the World Meteorological Organization in Paris, France, first promoted the inscription of the White Crane Beam to the world, which attracted great attention from experts in related fields. After the Three Gorges Project impounds water, Baiheliang will sink to the bottom of the river forever, and how to protect the inscription has become a major topic for experts to discuss and study.

Among the various protection schemes, the "pressureless container" scheme proposed by Ge Xiurun, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, was finally chosen. The plan is to build a huge pressureless container on the original site of Baiheliang, and fill the container with filtered Yangtze River water, so that the water pressure inside the container is relatively balanced with the water pressure of the Yangtze River outside. The container adopts advanced equipment and technology to precipitate the Yangtze River water and desilt activated carbon to reduce the erosion of the inscribed text by the river water. A pressure-resistant channel is built along the white crane beam in the container, and the audience can see the underwater inscriptions up close through the observation window. The "Baiheliang Inscription Inscription Original Site Underwater Protection Project" is one of the projects with the most technical disciplines and the greatest difficulty in the protection of underwater cultural relics so far, making the Three Gorges area have the world's largest group of dry water inscriptions and the world's first underwater inscription museum.

Underwater inscription taken through the observation window of the Baiheliang Underwater Museum. Photo by He Penglei

At present, the world pays more attention to underwater cultural heritage, Egypt, Greece, Mexico are planning to build underwater museums, Shimen stone carvings under China's Shimen Reservoir, Qiandao Lake underwater Hecheng (ancient Chun'an City), Xifengkou Great Wall, Lion City (ancient Sui'an City) and other underwater heritage are also facing the problem of protection and display, the protection and utilization experience of Baiheliang underwater heritage has opened up a new perspective for the world.

China News Agency: In recent years, extreme weather has been staged one after another around the world, and hydrological disasters such as droughts and floods have always existed. What is the significance of Baiheliang's thousand-year history of hydrological monitoring for the world's response to hydrological disasters and strengthening sustainable development?

Yang Bonde: Throughout human history, major climatic disasters such as extreme drought, floods, and low temperatures will have a major impact on human social and economic development.

The hydrological data recorded by Baiheliang is the experience and understanding of the ancients in long-term observation, which implicitly combines the causal relationship and scientific law between climate, hydrology and agriculture, and summarizes the law of precipitation cycle and water level change of the Yangtze River in the Three Gorges area. These records provide valuable historical information for the study of agricultural production in the ancient Three Gorges area, and can still provide reference for social climate change and water environment problems.

Tourists visit the ground exhibition hall of the Baiheliang Underwater Museum. Photo by He Penglei

The hydrological data of Baiheliang plays an important role in the study of hydropower development, bridge construction, inland navigation, farmland irrigation, urban water supply, and flood control along the Yangtze River Basin, especially for the completion of the Gezhouba project and the construction of the Three Gorges Water Conservancy Project. When formulating the planning of the Yangtze River water conservancy project, it is generally necessary to use the probability of one in a thousand as the insurance factor, that is, when the once-in-a-millennium extreme dry water level or exceptionally large flood occurs, it can ensure that the project has sufficient power generation, navigation capacity, as well as safety factor and flood resistance ability.

Climate and hydrology are closely related. In recent years, due to the influence of extreme weather, the frequency of natural disasters around the world has increased significantly, and the impact of disasters has become increasingly serious. From the existing hydrological data of Baiheliang, a law can be drawn: one small dry in three to five years in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, one dry in ten years, and one extreme dry in six hundred years. Whether these hydrological climate change laws work today and how they have changed may provide some ideas for human beings to deal with extreme weather in the future. (End)

Respondent Profile:

Yang Bangde, male, director of Chongqing Baiheliang Underwater Museum, vice chairman of the National Union of Water Conservancy Museums, expert of the Expert Committee, expert of the Water Culture Working Committee of the China Culture and Art Development Promotion Association, member of the 4th Academic Committee of the China Three Gorges Museum in Chongqing, published papers such as "Yangtze River History and Culture Business Card - Baiheliang", "Yueyong River-Yangtze River Culture from the Perspective of Inscriptions", "Protection and Display of Underwater Stone Cultural Relics of Baiheliang" and other papers.