In addition to Yani's Book of the Dead, another highlight of the Egyptian Pavilion is the Rosetta Stone. It is a marble stele made in 196 BC.

In fact, for ordinary tourists like me, the story behind the Rosetta Stone and itself is not as wonderful as the Book of the Dead by Arni, an ordinary stone tablet engraved with the edict of King Ptolemy V of Egypt.

If I had to tell the story behind it, there might be only one story that could be called a little interesting - the Rosetta Stone, which was originally Napoleon's thing. Napoleon accidentally excavated the stele after his occupation of Egypt and gave it the name Rosetta after the name of the place where it was excavated. But before the stele could be heated, it was snatched away by the British. For more than 200 years since then, the Rosetta Stone has never left England and has remained in the British Museum for almost all of its time.

Although I have no interest in the Rosetta Stone, for the archaeological community, this Rosetta Stone is a treasure of treasures, even more important than Arni's Book of the Dead. Because this stele is engraved with the same text in three different languages at the same time! For archaeologists, the Rosetta Stone is a dictionary that gives them the opportunity to decipher the meaning and structure of Egyptian hieroglyphs that have been lost for more than a thousand years by comparing the contents of the various language versions! It is for this reason that the Rosetta Stone is considered an important milestone in the study of ancient Egyptian history today.

For this reason, the secretary general of the Supreme Council of Egyptian Antiquities, based in Cairo, has publicly stated that Britain should return the Rosetta Stone to its rightful place.

The attitude of the British government is very simple, birds do not bird you, you love to call for protests, and no matter how public it is, I should not have seen or heard. Besides, the Greeks over there have been protesting for several years to return the Parthenon marble to them, and even because of this, it almost affected the diplomatic relations between the two of us.

After a short walk around the Egyptian Pavilion, I followed the route on the map and headed straight to the second stop, Hall 33.

The British Museum's Room 33 is a permanent gallery dedicated to Chinese antiquities, and is one of only a few national galleries in the museum, along with Egypt, Greece, Rome and India.

In addition to Hall 33, Huaxia also has several other exhibition halls, such as Hall 95 on the fifth floor. These exhibition halls are all affiliated with the Museum of Oriental Art and Cultural Relics. Compared with the so-called South Korea and Japan, which are all built for the richness of the exhibits and only provide the most basic cultural introduction, the Huaxia Exhibition Hall is undoubtedly the most important part of the Oriental Art Museum.

Walking in the No. 33 exhibition hall, looking at the various cultural relics in the windows on both sides, from ancient stoneware to Shang and Zhou bronzes, from Wei and Jin stone Buddhist scriptures to Tang and Song dynasty calligraphy and paintings, from Yuan blue and white to Ming and Qing dynasty porcelain. The sound of the explainer in my hand came clearly into my ears,

"It covers almost the entire category of Chinese art, and almost all the national treasures that mark the pinnacle of various cultures in Chinese history can be seen here, and they can be described as complete and beautiful. In addition to these artifacts on display, the British Museum also has a Tang Dynasty facsimile of Gu Kaizhi's Female Historian of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. There are only two copies of "The Female Historian" in the world, one of which is copied by the Song people, which is collected by the Palace Museum in Beijing, and the brushwork and color are not of the highest quality. ”

The brushwork and colors are not of the highest quality... The subconscious meaning of this is that the one kept by the British Museum is the best of the best?

I glanced down at the explainer, and a sense of annoyance rose in my heart, and I suddenly wanted to slam this thing on the ground. After resisting the urge to turn off the interpreter, I looked at the artifacts on both sides and my mood gradually changed.

If I could still imagine the glory of the empire through those artifacts from the standpoint of Flower in the Egyptian Pavilion just now, standing in this exhibition hall 33, I have no such thoughts at all, and all that is left is a boredom that weighs me down like a boulder.

In a foreign country, in the docent of the national museum of another country, I heard a voice say to me, "The collection in the largest and most authoritative museum in your motherland is not of the highest quality." , the real quality is in my hands. I found that I didn't know what kind of emotion to use to face this voice.

Walking to the center of the exhibition hall, there are dozens of square meters of Dunhuang murals on the wall, the cut marks on it are still visible, but it is difficult to hide its long-term beauty and the grace and luxury of the three Bodhisattvas. And this is only one of the Chinese national treasures in the British Museum, and there are many more, which have not been displayed. The answer to the question of how many things were transported across the ocean in those days is no one but the British themselves.

Noticing that my eyes were wrong, Flower walked up to me and tapped me on the shoulder without speaking. This topic is too heavy for us.

As a Chinese, I certainly feel that these are the things left by the ancestors of Huaxia and should be returned to Huaxia. But from the point of view of the British, they may think that these are my trophies, why should I give you back Huaxia, if this is the beginning, then the British Museum will not be emptied in a month.

I turned my head to look at Flower and smiled to indicate that I was okay.

Turning my head to look at the three bodhisattvas on the mural, I sadly found that the only thing I can comfort myself now is that, from the perspective of cultural relics, although Britain can be said to be a kind of plunder, as the common heritage of human civilization, this is also a kind of protection of cultural relics.

But, is that all? Can you only bury your head in the soil like an ostrich to comfort yourself?

I stared at the mural, and there was a voice in my heart that was getting louder and louder, the motherland of China, 49 years after the founding of the country, 67 years ago. In the past 67 springs, summers, autumns and winters, the motherland China has gone from obscurity, the world's last to the world's second, which is eye-catching. The motherland, China, is prosperous and strong every day. In the first 67 years, we were not strong enough to get the British to send these artifacts back. But the second 67, the third 67, and even the fourth, the fifth ... One day, these cultural relics will finally return to the embrace of the motherland! At that time, "The Female Historian", whether it is a facsimile of the top grade or a lower grade, will be displayed in and only in the Forbidden City!

At that time, our martyrs will laugh in the sky at the British soldiers who once held themselves arrogant in the world, and thank them for protecting the cultural relics for China for so long!

There will come a time.