Documentary series tells stories of 100 ancient artifacts

: 0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China Daily, July 19, 2018

The new season of a documentary series, Every Treasure Tells a Story, will show the stories behind the artifacts from three periods in imperial China, Xu Fan reports.

When director Pan Yi visited the Hebei Museum in 2016, she saw the Changxin Palace Lamp for the first time. The gilded bronze lantern－unearthed from a tomb in 1968 that was buried with a vassal king's wife over 2,000 years ago－is one of China's most well-known artifacts.

"For a moment, time seems to have stopped moving forward. The lamp really looks like a young maid in the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 24) who is kneeling down to serve her master," Pan, 34, said during a news conference in Beijing on July 13.

"I was very curious about what 'she' had seen in the palace and what 'she' would think about the modern world if 'she' could come alive," she added.

This interesting idea reflects the inspiration for Every Treasure Tells a Story, a documentary series helmed by more than 10 directors including Pan that tells the stories of 100 artifacts selected from 3.8 million exhibits from nearly 100 museums across China.

The series, which saw its first season of 25 episodes air on China Central Television's documentary channel in January, will start its second season－also consisting of 25 episodes with each running for five minutes－on the same channel from Monday. Each episode focuses on a single artifact, and the series will eventually run to 100 episodes.

Thanks to its lighthearted tune and breezy narration style, the first season proved a hit with younger audiences, scoring a rating of 9.5 points out of 10 on Douban, a popular review site.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 >