Chapter 1,495 Confucius Temple Yu Shu Zhenguan Engraving, Purchased by Thousand Liang of Gold
Duan Fang was a person who loved cultural relics. In 1906, on his way back to China from a mission to study Western politics, he briefly stayed in Cairo, Egypt.
Because Egypt has a very long history, the government at that time was incompetent.
Therefore, there is no awareness to protect cultural relics, and a large number of precious cultural relics are brought to the cultural relics market and put on the shelves at very cheap prices.
Duanfang immediately purchased a large number of Egyptian cultural relics, including painted coffins from the 19th Dynasty of ancient Egypt.
The coffin is 185 centimeters long, 63 centimeters wide and 47 centimeters high. It contains the mummy of a noble woman.
The coffin lid is painted with the aristocratic woman's life appearance, and a cow is painted on both sides of the figure.
In Egyptian culture, the two cows are sacred cows in the underworld and can protect the dead.
If you take one look at something like this, you will never forget it.
Therefore, Chen Wenzhe, who had just thought about this treasure, had an impression of something good when he saw the picture on the coffin board.
Lifting the coffin board casually, Chen Wenzhe looked elsewhere. Sure enough, there were many rubbings pressed here.
At that time, in addition to the coffin, Duanfang also purchased a large number of ancient Egyptian stone tablets, stone carvings, rubbings, etc.
But it is a pity that most of these cultural relics were sold off by Duanfang's descendants.
Only this painted coffin is fortunate enough to be collected by the National Museum.
Probably, it was because everyone knew that Duan Fang bought a lot of ancient Egyptian cultural relics back then, and except for the coffins, everything else was lost, so someone copied them!
As for whether the things here are genuine, don’t have such extravagant expectations.
Seeing Chen Wenzhe looking at something and shaking his head, Chen Xingchen, who had been following beside him, was about to laugh out loud.
Although he doesn't know much about antiques, calligraphy, paintings, and inscriptions, the things here are so famous that even a fool knows they can't be real.
Therefore, after seeing Chen Wenzhe shaking his head, Chen Xingchen had already begun to despise Li Tianqiang.
But Li Tianqiang didn't care too much. However, seeing that Chen Wenzhe had lost interest and stopped checking carefully, he instead moved closer to Chen Wenzhe.
"Boss, don't look at anything else, just take a look at this Confucius Temple Monument!"
Chen Wenzhe was stunned: "What? Someone told you that this stone tablet is authentic?"
Chen Wenzhe naturally did not think that Li Tianqiang was unnecessary, so he quickly realized something.
It is definitely not easy to collect so many high imitations.
Since there is guidance from an expert, what Li Tianqiang said is somewhat credible.
Therefore, Chen Wenzhe really looked at a pile of inscriptions not far away, and said again, no matter what is here, as long as one thing is true, Chen Wenzhe will wake up from his dream with a smile.
After rummaging around for a while, there was indeed a stone tablet under those tablets.
Chen Wenzhe was a bit dumbfounded. If it were really a Confucius temple stele, even if it was reprinted by later generations, as long as it was not reprinted by modern people, it would still be a treasure.
The Confucius Temple Monument is very famous, and Chen Wenzhe knew that it had been damaged very early on.
There are several types of "Confucius Temple Stele", and the one written by Yu Shinan of the Tang Dynasty is the most famous, so it is called "Confucius Temple Stele" or "Confucius Temple Stele", mostly referring to this stele.
Inscribed in the ninth year of Wude in the Tang Dynasty, that is, 626 AD, Yu Shinan wrote the book.
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This stone tablet is an outstanding work of inscriptions in the early Tang Dynasty, and is also recognized by epigraphers and calligraphers of all ages as a masterpiece of Yu calligraphy.
This stele was erected to record the conferment of Kong Delun, the 33rd grandson of Confucius, in the ninth year of Emperor Wude's reign (626), to praise the saintly princes and to rebuild the Confucius Temple.
It was carved in the seventh year of Zhenguan (633), and there is no date or month of writing.
Therefore, this stele is a Tang stele, with the official script written and combined by Yu Shinan.
The "Confucius Temple Stele" written by Yu Shinan was originally called "Dongguan Tie". It was collected by Wang Shizhen in the Ming Dynasty and later transferred to the Qing Dynasty.
During this period, it was acquired by Dong Qichang, who greatly praised it.
Yu Shinan wrote this stele and presented it in ink.
Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty.
Taizong gave to Yu Shinan the yellow and silver seal of Kuaiji Neishi, the right army general who was admired by Wang Xizhi.
The thank you note written by Yu Shinan himself was engraved in "Qunyutang Tie" in the Song Dynasty, but has been lost.
The calligraphy on this stele is handsome and round, elegant and quiet. It is a masterpiece among the stele inscriptions in the early Tang Dynasty.
After the stele was inscribed, "only dozens of pieces of paper were carved and given to the ministers, and the fire was not long gone."
It is a pity that this monument has been lost for a long time and cannot be found.
In the third year of Chang'an of Wu Zhou Dynasty (703), Wu Zetian ordered Li Dan, the Prime Minister, to re-engrave it.
This tablet has thirty-five lines of main text and sixty-four characters in each line.
The six characters "Stele of Confucius Temple" in seal script on the forehead were written by Li Dan.
And this heavily engraved stone is not handed down today.
In the Song Dynasty, Huang Tingjian wrote a poem: "How can I buy the Zhenguan engraving of Yu Shu from the Confucius Temple for a thousand taels of gold?" It can be seen that the original rubbings were rare in the Northern Song Dynasty.
Therefore, not to mention this stone tablet, even if it is an ancient rubbing, it is very precious.
Among the fine ancient rubbings preserved now, only Li Zonghan of the Qing Dynasty obtained the old collection of Yuan Kangli in Yushan, which is known as the Tang rubbings.
Exactly when it was expanded is difficult to determine.
Most of these rubbings are from the Shaanxi edition, and most of the characters "Man'ao" and "Xianlu" are from the Tang edition.
Li Zonghan's original text contains Weng Fanggang's explanatory text.
This rubbing has been photocopied by Zhonghua Bookstore, Wenming Bookstore, Youzheng Bookstore, Dahai Ancient Books Bookstore, and Neon Ergensha. The original rubbing has been transferred to Neon and is in the possession of the Mitsui family.
Of course, this does not mean that there are no such stone steles now. In fact, there are still two engraved stones for the "Confucius Temple Stele".
One piece is in the Chang'an Stele Forest Museum, commonly known as the "West Temple Stele".
It was engraved in Chang'an by Wang Yanchao of the Song Dynasty, with thirty-five lines and sixty-four characters.
At the end of the stele, a line of nine characters "Wang Yanchao rebuilt it and An Zuo carved it" was added.
During the earthquake in the 34th year of Jiajing reign of the Ming Dynasty (1555), the stele was broken into three parts.
The word "Yu Shi" in the second line is intact.
The back of the stele is engraved with Song Dun's "Xing Song Bang", written in Ying seal script of the Song and Tang Dynasties, inscribed in May of the third year of Tianxi (1019).
The other piece was in Chengwu, Qilu, and is commonly known as the "East Temple Hall Stele".
This stone tablet is 2.08 meters tall, 0.89 meters wide, and 0.22 meters thick. It has 33 lines of characters and a full grid of 33 characters.
The regular script written in it is soft on the outside but strong on the inside, round and powerful.
The character "人" in the first line of "Zhongshe Ren" and the character "Dan" in "Xiang Wangdan" in the first line of Ming rubbings are both intact.
From the Yuan Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty (1335-1340), it was unearthed when the Dingtao River bank collapsed. The date of the imitation is unknown.
It's a pity that this piece of stone is not strong, and the calligraphy on the rubbings is wavy and thin.
Li Zonghan of the Qing Dynasty obtained Kangli's version, and many places had the words "Chengwu version" added to it.
Weng Fanggang commented that the "East Temple Hall Stele" is thinner and harder than the "West Temple Hall Stele".
This monument is now in the Chengwu County Cultural Relics Museum.
Others include the "Qufu Engraved Edition", which was learned in Qufu County, Qilu and copied by Weng Fanggang in the 58th year of Qianlong's reign in the Qing Dynasty (1793);
There is the "Jinjiang Academy Engraved Edition" from Raozhou (now Boyang County, Xijiang);
There are Pan's "Haishan Xianguan Edition" of Nanhai (now Nanhai County, Guangdong Province) and so on.
If what he saw in front of him might be genuine, then Chen Wenzhe was more optimistic about those rubbings than the stone tablet.
"I heard these rubbings are also genuine!"
At this moment, Li Tianqiang proudly pointed to a few rubbings on the other side.