近日，聯合國教科文組織官方刊物《信使》雜誌在2020年第4期刊登了由南方科技大學人文社會科學學院講席教授，中國青銅時代考古學家唐際根撰寫的《中國：安徽銅陵數字銅博物館共享全球青銅器資源》，文章詳細介紹了我市青銅文化歷史和中國數字銅博物館，並給予中國數字銅博物館建設成果高度評價，這也是我市文化建設成就首獲聯合國教科文組織官方推介。
《信使》官網介紹中國數字銅博物館
英文原文
China: Bronzes from around the world reunite in a digital museum
A new kind of museum in Tongling, China, virtually displays ancient copper and bronze objects from the Han dynasty, many of which have found their way to museums abroad. It foretells the future of digital museums – institutions capable of sharing their resources and offering unprecedented access to their collections to global audiences.
Tang Jigen
Chair Professor at the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) in Shenzhen, with an expertise in Chinese Bronze Age archaeology.
Caught in the turmoil of history, many cultural objects were taken away from their countries of origin, and remain overseas. Often, it is unlikely that this stolen heritage is returned – at least in the short term. When the objects are not restituted for years, sometimes centuries, how do people in their countries of origin get to see these cultural treasures?
In the city of Tongling in the Anhui province of eastern China, the question of how to enjoy these objects that have remained overseas has been resolved by establishing a digital museum. A city of only 1.6 million, Tongling is famous for the production of copper – copper mining and bronze casting were established there in the late seventeenth century BC. During the Han Dynasty (202 BC–220 AD), this river port along the Yangtze river supplied most of the raw material for the casting of copper coins.
In 2016, the city’s local government, with the help of experts, decided to construct a museum dedicated to copper and bronze. The goal of the Digital Museum of Copper and Bronzes (DMCB) is to share globally, the cultural resources of ancient Chinese copper and bronze objects online – especially those that remain abroad.
A very special rhino
Some of the treasures that visitors to the DMCB website (expected to go online by end 2020) will have access to, are: 100 Highlights of Chinese Bronze Objects, an online exhibition of a hundred bronzes selected by archaeologists through a voting process. It includes some Chinese bronzes from museum collections overseas. Another exhibition, 100 stories about Bronze Objects, recounts details of how these bronzes left China and still remain abroad.
One of these stories tells of how the Xiao Chen Yu zun – a 3,000-year old ritual bronze vessel shaped like a rhinoceros, from the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BC) – made its way to Paris through C. T. Loo, an art dealer, and was bought by Avery Brundage, an American sports administrator and former president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). This Bronze Age Chinese ritual vessel, unique because it was made in the shape of an animal, was finally donated to the Asian Art Museum(link is external) (link is external)of San Francisco – where it remains one of the museum’s most visited pieces, and even serves as its mascot.
The idea of sharing cultural resources online is not new. Many museums which are part of the International Council of Museums (ICOM(link is external)) network have their own websites. What makes the DMCB unique is that it integrates and shows cultural resources spread across different countries. China has experienced great losses of its cultural heritage over centuries. Millions of cultural objects are estimated to have left the country through different means.
More than just a website
A survey conducted by this author in 2016 concluded that over ninety per cent of respondents hoped that the cultural objects which had left China would one day be returned to their country of origin. The fact that these cultural objects can now be shared online through the DMCB, may serve to relieve the long-lasting tension between China and the countries that currently house them.
Though the DMCB is an innovative idea, it is limited to sharing only a specific type of object online – Chinese bronzes. In future, digital museums will be built and run by several museums collaborating across different countries, integrating a wealth of resources to exhibit a wide range of art objects. These new digital museums could be called 「digital museum networks」 or 「cloud museums」.
The cloud museums are neither simply websites that display a specific museum’s collections, nor the combination of the websites of different museums. Instead, they are the result of collaborations of various museums across the world. These futuristic digital museums already exist – the online exhibition by the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology(link is external) at the University of Cambridge and the British Museum(link is external), both in the United Kingdom, is one such example.
The rapid and dramatic strides in big data storage and transfer technologies will facilitate the birth of cloud museums. Some scholars have predicted that the advent of these museums could change the current state of these institutions, and even culture in general.
Limitless possibilities
The digital museums of the future will be able to select different types of objects on a range of themes, to design exhibitions on an unprecedented scale by sharing huge amounts of data. They may also be able to interpret and display an object in a variety of ways, drawing on cultural resources from across the globe. Scholars from different countries would be able to engage in a conversation with each other, and with the public, about the objects on display.
Three thousand years ago, during the Shang Dynasty – the earliest archaeologically recorded dynasty in Chinese history – bronze craftsmen created at least two known bronze you objects, depicting a tiger eating a human. Because of historical reasons, these two objects are now in the collections of the Musée Guimet(link is external) in Paris and the Sen-Oku Hakukokan Museum(link is external) in Kyoto, Japan. If these two museums and the Chinese archaeologists specializing in the Shang period all featured on a cloud museum one day to share their knowledge and stories about these you objects with a worldwide audience, how wonderful it would be.
中文譯文
中國：安徽銅陵數字銅博物館共享全球青銅器資源
中國安徽銅陵數字銅博物館展示了大量商代以來的青銅器，其中相當多的青銅器來自中國以外的其它國家。此種新的展覽形式預見了數字博物館的未來發展，它通過分享國際資源，給觀眾提供了跨國訪問藏品的全新可能。
唐際根
南方科技大學人文社會科學學院講席教授
中國青銅時代考古學家
在歷史的動蕩中，許多珍貴文物被攜帶出母國，長期滯留海外。這些流失文物回歸母國的難度極高——至少短期而言是這樣。如果多年甚至幾個世紀以後這些文物都無法歸還，文物原有國的人們如何才能看到這些文化寶藏？
為了讓文物原籍國人們欣賞到滯留海外的本國文物，中國東部的安徽省銅陵市打造了一座數字博物館，以滿足人們對流失文物的文物的關注熱情。銅陵市是一座僅有160萬人口的城市，以產銅而聞名於世——公元前17世紀末，銅陵就開始了銅礦開採和青銅器鑄造。在漢王朝時期（公元前202年至公元220年），這座沿江城市長期為國家提供鑄造銅幣的主要原材料。
2016年，當地政府在社會各界支持下，決定打造一座反映採銅歷史和展示青銅器的數字博物館。銅數字博物館（DMCB）的一個重要目標，便是讓全球公眾在線共享中國古代銅器和銅文化資源，尤其是那些留在海外的青銅器。
奇特的犀牛
DMCB網站（銅數字博物館）預計在很快上線， 來自全世界的遊客可以通過網際網路自由訪問其珍貴文物展品，其中包括：由文博領域知名考古學家通過調研和投票選出的100件中國青銅器精品，部分海外博物館收藏的中國青銅器也囊括在內。同時推出的還有被稱為「中國青銅器故事百則」的包括中國青銅器「跨國旅行」的流傳故事。推出的故事中將有一則圍繞一件3000多年前商朝（公元前1600-1046年）「小臣艅」尊的故事。這件犀牛形禮器當年被藝術品經銷商C.T.Loo帶到巴黎，並被國際奧委會前主席美國人艾弗裡·布倫戴奇（Avery Brundage）買下的故事。這件青銅器時代的中國禮器因其造型獨特，最終被捐贈給舊金山的亞洲藝術博物館（Asian Art Museum），至今為止，它仍然是博物館最受歡迎的展品之一，並被用作為該博物館的鎮館之寶。
文化資源網絡共享並不是什麼新概念。國際博物館理事會（ICOM）旗下的許多博物館都擁有自己的網站。DMCB（銅數字博物館）的獨特之處在於它圍繞某個主題，整合併展示了分布在不同國家的珍貴文物，在此基礎上促成了全球資源共享。近代歷史上，中國的文化遺產資源隨著國家命運的沉浮遭受過損失。據估計，數以百萬計的文物因不同途徑離開了自己的國家。
不僅僅是網站
本文作者在2016年進行了一項社會調查，調查表明超過90%的受訪者希望流失文物有一天能回到祖國。通過DMCB（銅數字博物館）展示那些曾經屬於本國的文物，有助於作為文物流失國的中國與文物所在國之間對此類文物資源的協調與處理。
雖然DMCB（銅數字博物館）是一種創新的模式，但是它只能有限地分享特定類型的文物——中國青銅器。可以預見，在不久的將來，越來越多的國家將通過數字博物館積極開展合作，整合各種資源，展示多樣的文物藝術品。這種新型的數字博物館關聯起來，或可以稱為「數字博物館網絡」或「雲博物館」。
雲博物館並不是一個簡單展示博物館藏品的網站，也不是數字博物館網站的簡單組合。其意義更在於營造世界各地博物館網站合作的氛圍和模式。利用數位化技術共享文物資料過去也有過不錯的案例，如劍橋大學考古學和人類學博物館（https://maa.cam.ac.uk/）和英國的大英博物館（https://www.britishmuseum.org/）的在線展覽。雲博物館的誕生得益於大數據存儲和傳輸技術的進步。有學者預測，雲博物館的出現可能會改變世界各國的文物管理機構甚至文化資源分布狀態。
前景展望
數字博物館能夠依據多種主題上選擇和展示文物藏品，通過大數據共享設計規模空前的展覽，可以整合世界各地的文物資源，以不同的方式解釋和展示藏品。來自不同國家的學者將能夠就展出的文物藝術品在線即時交流，並以各種形式與全球公眾互動，滿足社會群體的文化需求。
三千年前，中國商王朝工匠們至少鑄造了至少兩件「虎食人卣」。由於歷史原因，這兩件文物現在分藏被巴黎的Guimet博物館（https://www.guimet.fr/）和日本京都的Sen-Oku Hanukkah博物館（https://www.sen-oku.or.jp/tokyo/english.html）。將來的某一天，當中國考古學家與法國、日本的博物館的專家同時出現在雲博物館，與全世界觀眾共同分享兩件「虎食人卣」的知識和流傳故事時，那將是一場多麼美妙的文化盛宴呀。