China

This archaeological exhibition is not only one of the most important exhibitions on Chinese archaeology ever mounted outside China but also is the most ambitious presentation of China's medieval era ever presented to the American public.Like its predecessor "The Great Bronze Age of China" (Metropolitan Museum, 1980), "Dawn" is composed of excavated or unearthed objects loaned directly from China."Dawn" differs from "Bronze Age" in two significant areas: chronological range and thematic coverage.Chronologically, it shifts to the much later medieval period.Thematically, instead of focusing on a single art form like bronzes, it extends coverage to embrace gold and silver, pottery, china, glass, stone statues and carvings, textiles, murals, gems, coins, and paper manuscripts.The concept for this exhibition originated with Philippe de Montebello, director of the museum, and Wen C. Fong, professor emeritus of Chinese art at Princeton.It took seven years of collaborative work between the Metropolitan and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China, as well as the participation of 46 museums in China, for the concept to come to fruition.The period covered by "Dawn" begins with the last phase of the Eastern Han, the close of which marked the end of the first empire and the emergence of the age of political fragmentation (fig.1).After a brief period of reunification under the Western Jin from 280 to 311, China proper was subject to incessant invasion by non-Han ethnic groups, notably the Xiongnu and the Xianbei.About a century later, the Tuoba branch of the Xianbei emerged as the dominant group in north China, while the south was ruled by a succession of Han Chinese regimes.In the following age of north-south rivalry, major political

Ancient history · Archaeology · China · Geography · Globalization, Economics, and Policies · History

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