Starting My Treasure Hunting In England

The Buddhist temple stele of the Anzhou statue in Juqu, Beiliang is considered an important cultural relic lost in China. The only trace left of it in history is a pair and a half of rubbings.

That was in 1906. Affected by the constitutional movement, the Qing government sent five ministers including Duan Fang to the West to inspect constitutional government and prepare to formulate a constitution.

When Duan Fang visited the East Asian Art Museum in Berlin, he was shocked when he saw this Buddhist temple stele with the statue of Anzhou in Juqu, Beiliang. Because he was an epigrapher himself and understood the preciousness and importance of this stone tablet, he requested a rubbing.

With the cooperation of the Museum of East Asian Art in Berlin, Duan Fang made a rubbing and brought it back to China. This became the last known trace of the monument.

"It seems that these things should come from the precious cultural relics of the Museum of East Asian Art in Berlin." After looking at the checked contents, Liang En subconsciously tapped the screen of his phone with his index finger and then looked at Joan of Arc beside him.

"I think we may need some time to look through all the things inside, and then find a way to take away the cultural relics that the Germans looted from China."

So in the next work, Liang En and the others began to open the boxes one by one and inspect the contents, and determine what these things were and their origins.

Thanks to the fact that this high ground is higher than the surrounding thick cement and steel bars in the basement, the cultural relics inside seem to be very well preserved, which obviously also facilitates Liang En's inspection work.

During the subsequent inspection, they found a large number of cultural relics from China, such as statues of gods, Brahman statues, and even a whole statue of Buddha's Nirvana.

There is no doubt that these murals were probably stolen from some caves. In addition, there are some Buddhist supplies, such as the lotus base with only the feet of the sculpture remaining, and some ancient documents that have been processed.

These things were placed in boxes one after another. Some boxes weighed more than one hundred kilograms, while other boxes only weighed thirty or forty kilograms.

No matter how much the box weighs, whenever Liang En sees a cultural relic from China, he will put it into the space formed by his card.

By night, Liang En and the others had cleaned half of the boxes and stuffed them into the space. The most precious cultural relics in these boxes were the murals from the TLF Kizil Grottoes.

From 1902 to 1914, the Berlin Folk Museum in Germany (the predecessor of the Museum of Indian Art in Berlin, now called the Asian Art Museum in Berlin) sent TLF expedition teams to the Western Regions of China four times.

The first two expeditions were conducted in 1902-1903 and 1904-1905 respectively, mainly focusing on the TLF area. The latter two expeditions were conducted in 1906-1907 and 1913-1914 respectively.

The expedition team stayed in the Kucha area for a long time and uncovered a large number of murals from the Kucha Grottoes such as Kizil, Kumutula, Senmushem and Mazabaha, and also looted sculptures and Buddhist scriptures. and other cultural relics.

Among the murals uncovered by the German expedition team, the largest number came from the Kizil Grottoes. During the third inspection, in addition to uncovering the murals, they also took photos of the exterior of the Kizil Grottoes, the shape of the cave and the murals.

At the same time, while those Germans were frantically stealing damaged cultural relics, they also numbered and named each cave, and made more detailed records of the shape of the caves, the content and layout of the murals, and the decorative patterns.

The records of the Kizil Grottoes’ cave shape, subject matter, content and location distribution in Germany were mainly completed at this time. What Liang En found was that there were two complete sets of original documents in the box.

The number of murals uncovered by the Germans during the fourth, most barbaric expedition far exceeded that of the third expedition. There are still inscriptions from the German expedition team on the walls of Cave 177, 213 and 223A of the Kizil Grottoes.

According to Liang En's inspection, there are more than 500 mural fragments from the Kizil Grottoes alone, covering an area of ​​more than 500 square meters, and come from more than 40 caves.

In another world, these murals are kept by the Indian Department of the Berlin Folk Museum. In the mid-1920s, in order to publish a catalog of murals, the museum sold a small number of murals and statues for charity to raise funds.

In addition, a small number of murals were given as gifts by Albert von Le Coq, the captain of the fourth expedition, as his own personal gift.

Of course, this is absolutely impossible in this day and age, but it was a relatively common practice at that time.

But the most significant losses came from World War II. Berlin was bombed by the Allied forces, and the Folk Museum on Künnichtstrasse lost the most of its preserved murals, accounting for about 40%.

What was destroyed were all fine works on display, many of which were murals from the Kizil Grottoes. When the Soviet Red Army occupied Berlin in 1945, they confiscated many cultural relics, including some of the Kizil Grottoes murals.

These cultural relics are now collected in the Hermitage Museum in Russia. It was not until 2008 that they were partially exposed in the Western Region Cultural Relics Exhibition of the Hermitage Museum.

Considering that the Russians declared that all the spoils of World War II belong to them and will never be returned, the probability of these things returning home is basically non-existent.

But in this world, these things were taken out of Berlin for unknown reasons and sent to this remote corner near Prague, where they were discovered by Liang En.

"Why have these precious cultural relics been forgotten here for more than half a century?" Joan frowned after listening to Liang En's explanation.

"According to what we have seen before, the troops escorting them are certainly more than a platoon. It is really unlikely that so many people will die at the same time."

"It is also possible that the other party ran away directly. Before entering the 1990s, China's cultural relics did not have much economic value except historical value, so few people were willing to chase them." Liang En said with his hands spread out.

In fact, the price of international cultural relics is often related to the economic level of the country where these cultural relics are located, especially the number of people from these countries who are willing to pay and the ease of paying.

For example, in the early 21st century, when the Russian oligarchs were in power and oil prices soared, Russian cultural relics were very expensive in the international market, and those Russians who needed these cultural relics for speculation were treated as fat sheep.

Except for this situation, the international cultural relics market controlled by Westerners basically does not consider non-Western cultural relics to be very valuable. So naturally it will not be regarded as a treasure.

Therefore, even if those who moved it survived, they might not take these worthless clods of soil seriously in the eyes of laymen, so it is normal for this place to be forgotten.

It can only be speculated as to why the contents of this place were forgotten, but during the next day's search, they found documents along with more characters that roughly explained why.

This was a yellowed document placed in a folder, with black words and a blue crispy eagle seal on it. After careful inspection, Liang En determined that it was a document from Germany at the end of World War II.

The content of the document is also very simple, that is, this group of people who only have documents are allowed to leave Berlin with cultural relics to complete the work of hiding the cultural relics. In addition, there are several passes that allow them to leave Berlin.

However, Liang En felt that there was something wrong with these documents as soon as he found them, so he used an [Appraisal (N)] card and learned that the documents were forged.