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1937 |
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To the Swedish China Research Committee:- I have to acknowledge with sincere thanks Professor Karlgren's letter of April 28th., explaining the opinion of the Committee with reference to my difficulties in using the lottery funds. Since then so many events have interfered, and during the last few days an entirely new situation has devel- oped here in Chengtu, so I will below give a resumé of the si...
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To the Swedish China Research Committee:- I have to acknowledge with sincere thanks Professor Karlgren's letter of April 28th., explaining the opinion of the Committee with reference to my difficulties in using the lottery funds. Since then so many events have interfered, and during the last few days an entirely new situation has devel- oped here in Chengtu, so I will below give a resumé of the sit- uation as it stands for the moment. I found it my duty to sound the Committee to what extent it would be possible eventually to use funds for the purchase of specially attractive specimens and I fully realise from Professor Karlgren"s letter that no such action can be taken. Consequently also my later memorandum re: the marvel- lous laquered birds and serpänts from Changsha must be left out of consideration. So far the situation is perfectly clear. Nearly all my difficulties in handling the situation, as things have developed here in China, hal referred to my de- sire to try to obtain from the scientific excavations some small part of the material obtained. From communications re- celived from Mr. Schofield I understand that he sent a box from the Hongkong sites and this material should have reached ÖS long before now. I have strived hard to obtain something simi- lar here in Chengtu. This action has brought me into a very unpleasant situation as will be shown below and at the very best we certainly had got very little. Now I am fully clear about that the only workable way is to unconditionally surren- der all collections. I sincerely hope that I act in full un- derstanding with the Committee who certainly feels with me that I only have surrendered to the inevitable. Under these circumstances it is very fortunate that Kungliga brevet concerning my 40,000 Crs. does not prescribe that a portion of the collections must go to Sweden but only that if a part of the collections is given to Sweden that part will be given to ÖS. So finally we have arrived at a situation which is a clear-cut issue, satisfactory to the Chinese autho- rities and in accord with the new Chinese laws for the preser- vation of antiquities, amd at the same time as it fully agrees with the stipulations of Kungliga brevet. After these general remarks I will relate the history of the Szechuan expedition up to this date. After having received the necessary visa thaoush the from the Nanking authorities, as related in a letter to Professor Karlgren, we left Shanghai by steamer the 15th of May and arrived in Chungking on the 27th of May. After lengthy negotiations in order to get means of transportation we left Chungking the lst of June, travelling with motor car and a motor truck carrying all our outfit and supplies. After two
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Obs Page Two days” Journey we arrived in Chengtu the 2nd of June and were most hospitably received in the home of Dr. D. C. Graham, the Chengtu archaeologist and founder of the Museum of Archaeology o...
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Obs Page Two days” Journey we arrived in Chengtu the 2nd of June and were most hospitably received in the home of Dr. D. C. Graham, the Chengtu archaeologist and founder of the Museum of Archaeology of the West China Union University. Already on the third day of our stay in Chengtu I was invited to Mr, Lu Dzo-fu, the com- missioner of reconstruetion. To my great delight he asked me whether I would be willing to travel to the Southwestern corner of Szechuan in order to inspect two iron ore deposits. I na- turally agreed most willingly in the feeling that this would grant us not only government proteetion but also considerable freedom of action in archaeological research. The following day I went together with Dr. Graham to see the prineipal of the National University to whom I carried a letter of introduction from Dr. Wong Wen Hao. It is quite natural that I expected this letter of introduction to be helpful for my work. Spe- eially I want to emphasize that Dr. Wong had told me that any archaeological specimens collected by me should be presented to the National University of Chengtu. Consequently it caused me the greatest surprise when the letter was opened and I found that it amounted to little less than a death warrant to all my archaeological ambitions, presoribing that I should not be allowed to collect any archaeological specimens! The contradic- tion between Dr. Wong”s letter and his verbal statements to me can only be explained in such a way that somebody else less femiliar with the situation had in the rush preceeding Wong's departure for London, with scanty indications given by Wong, drafted a letter in his name. Consequently Wong”s letter, far from helping me seemed to mean complete destruction of all hopes to carry out archaeological work in Szechuan. With one of those instant and complete turngof events wnich are so characteristic of happenings here in the East, two days later there arrived in Chengtu the only man who had in his full command to grant me liberty to work in seientific archaeo- logical research in this province. This man was Dr. Fu Ssu-nien, the director of the department of history and philology of the Academia Sinica, consequently more or less the Riksantikvarie of China, Very fortunately I had met Dr. Fu in Nanking in the Academia Sinica and had been received in a very friendly manner by him, I instantly wrote to him a memorandum - copy of which is here enelosed. Yesterday he came to Dr. Graham”s museum and home and at once declared himself willing to try to find a formula for cooperation in the field with the Chengtu authori- ties. This morning Dr. Graham and I visited Dr. Fu in his tem- porary Chengtu residence and had there a long and pleasant dis- cussion with him. He had come here for a series of lectures on the earliest history of China and mentioned to me that he had devoted ra of his first lecture to a review of my fjpås in Kansu. o now you are properly introduced in Chengtu. He handed to us a brief agreement for our expedition, copy of which 1is hereby added. The main content of the agreement is, as will
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tur Page Three be seen, that all collections are surrendered to the National University who will give a duplicate set to the West China Union University. Two young Chinese archaeologists, one from Che...
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tur Page Three be seen, that all collections are surrendered to the National University who will give a duplicate set to the West China Union University. Two young Chinese archaeologists, one from Chengtu and one from the Academia Sinica, will travel with us. The first named Chinese archaeologist, who will be the representative of the National University, will formally be in charge of the collecting. He will register all specimens and deliver them to the National University. By this arrangement we have liberty to collect and ex- cavate and I am under such control that no suspioion can arise as to my fair play in dealing with the Chinese authorities. I severely feel the drawback of not being able to bring some part of the mater- ial to Sweden. Still in reality this does not count very heavily as certainly we would have been given only a second and rather poor duplicate set. I am also glåd to state that the agreement drawn up by Mr. Fu is fully in accord with Kungliga brevet, granting the 40,000 Crs. As things stand at present, I have - side by side with the Szechuan enterprise - the possibility of work in Japan. See copy of the letter from Professor Hamada that I received last night. As can be seen from Hamada”s friendly letter I have the possibility to obtain a duplicate set from the Neolithic excavations in Japan and later in the autumn I m: take advantage of Profe: sor Hamada's offer. Ål8o tr fra Lone hare JR AL Still, I would much prefer to devote all my available ex- cavation funds, with complete surrender of the specimens, here in Szechuan provided that I am also in the future given a-free hand to carry out scientific work. My reason for such a decision is the following: Here I am in the province immediately south of Kansu where I made my most important finds. A lengthy discussion this Kansu excavations to form a pileture of late prehistoric happenings, ULA morning with Dr. Fu, who has in a most interesting way utilized my 1) å the Szechuan-Tibetan borderland hevisg formed in prehistoric times a line of great migrations, has led him to emphasize the desirabi- lity of linking up the previous workin Kansu with similar reconnais- sance in Szechuan. I am here back in an extension of my old field of operations. I feel at home and happy and sincerely hope that the Committee will kindly share my views. Things have changed most fund- ementally here in China and if we want to carry out archaeological research work we certainly have to comply with the laws for the pre- servation of antiquities and the decision of the highest arehaeologi- cal authority. Nothing can be more providential thah the appearance here of the friendly Dr. Fu at the moment when things looked darkest for me. I am a new-comer in Szechuan and it is premature to try to guess what I may be able to accomplish in cooperation with Dr. Grahem who is going with me, Some idea of the archaeological pos- sibilities of Szechuan will be obtained from a memorandum written upon the requost of Dr. Graham and intended for the Harvard-Yenching Institute which financially supports his work. Copy of this memoran- dum is hereby added. Chengtu, June 7 - 1937. å brädgnes RER Lod
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