自古言湖南“北阻大江，南薄五岭，西接黔蜀，群苗所萃”，为“四塞之地”也。其地三面青嶂，一面天堑，山水合围，造就“秋风*里芙蓉国”、“三湘四水”之胜境，构成了湖湘独特的自然环境。一方水土养育一方人，斯山、斯水掩藏不住的幽奇秀特必成就别具一格的湖湘人文禀赋与性格。

　　“人”是文明最灵动的载体。先民勤力巧借天工，创造了悠久的湖湘历史与文明。远古神农氏，共创华夏文明，彪炳史册;自春秋战国始，楚繁衍于斯，屈子赋辞，成就楚辞之不朽;长沙太傅，贾谊哀鹏，壮志未酬，定忧民爱国之情操;宋之程朱，创书院、传理学，肇湖湘学派之基业;清之曾左胡彭，湘军突起，叱咤历史风云，赢得“中兴将相，什九湖湘”之称;近现代风流人物，激扬文字，指点江山，开辟巍巍中华新时代。光阴荏苒，岁月如歌，江山依旧，先贤不再，况乎黎民。

　　划过历史的年轮，时空的大浪淘沙，物是人非，而文明与精神却能永恒，究其根本，恰是人类记忆使然。人类因为有了记忆，善于记忆，并使用记忆，文明得以上下传承、源源不断、生生不息。同时，一个显而易见的事实却在于：记忆无法凭空出现，一定是附着于一定的介质而存在。因此，记忆也好，文明也罢，都离不开其最凝固的载体，我们称之为“物证”。“物证”的形式多种多样，不仅仅只限于固定不变的某一“形体”，一份典籍，一则史料，一类器物，一张光盘，甚至一具遗骸等等，只要是能反映人类社会之进程，均可视为“物证”，与人类之知识、信仰、艺术、道德、法律、风俗等共同构成文化遗产大体系。湖湘文明的博大精深正见证于凝结在相对不灭的“物证”之上的“记忆”及其“物证”本身。

　　在人类社会发展史上，博物馆被誉为“人类文明进步的标志之一”，博物馆荟萃代表人类社会文明象征的“物证”，并将之通过陈列展览，开展形式多样的社会教育活动，向公众开放，建筑起一道沟通“历史与当下”、“文明与记忆”的桥梁。抽丝剥茧，博物馆的本质正在于其是一类基于“物证”的收藏、研究及展示的社会教育机构。“物证”与文化遗产有着紧密联系，体现在博物馆的四大基础功能之中，典藏“物证”充分说明了博物馆与“物证”、文化遗产的关系，而博物馆对“物证”开展深入研究的另一基础功能诉求，则表明博物馆对“物证”所反映的文化遗产内涵之重视程度。毋庸置疑，博物馆研究“物证”有其必然意义，且责无旁贷，是博物馆能动完善藏品系列的依据，能使陈列展览与教育内容不至于偏离科学的轨道，以保障博物馆“启迪民智”，积极健康向前发展。

　　湖南省博物馆作为全省最大的综合性历史艺术博物馆，肇基于20世纪50年代初，是首批国家一级博物馆、中央地方共建国家级重点博物馆，现有“物证”(藏品)约18万件(套)，包括从旧石器时代至现代的历代文物，是湖南省向海内外展示、传承湖湘文化的重要窗口。珍贵的马王堆汉墓文物是世界“马王堆学”形成与发展的坚实基础，马王堆古尸、医书、医简等是研究中医学、生物学等的第一手珍贵资料;馆藏简牍帛书帛画是研究简帛学、文献学、艺术史、思想史、风俗史等必不可缺的资源;几十年来陆续入藏的魏源、曾国藩、左宗棠、彭玉麟、胡林翼、李鸿章、黄兴、蔡锷、谭延闿等两百多位中国近现代历史名人数以万计的手迹，构成我馆近现代文物中独具特色的收藏，是研究中国近现代政治、经济、军事、文化等极为重要的第一手史料;馆藏商周青铜器、西汉至清代的古琴、东汉至隋唐的精品瓷器、唐以来的名人书画珍品等，更是在全国都颇具影响和学术价值。

　　近年来，湖南省博物馆科研工作成绩斐然，在文物、博物馆学、陈列展览、文物保护、教育推广、文物鉴定与艺术史研究等方面积累了大量科研成果，先后完成国家级、省部级科研课题20余项，出版相关著作60余种，发表相关论文300多篇。但是，伴随着第二期改扩建工程的启动，一流的硬件更需有一流的陈列展览和科研成果支撑，只有进一步对馆藏进行系统、全面而深入的科学研究，才能策划出更高水平的陈列展览，更好地传承优秀的历史文化遗产，从而充分发挥博物馆的社会功能。为此，我们统一部署，以突出馆藏特色为原则，规划在未来几年里，首先从研究成果积累较多、基础较好的马王堆汉墓文物、青铜器、陶瓷、书画、名人手札等方面入手，稳步推进，保持每年都有较高水平的科研成果推出，形成“湖南省博物馆藏品研究大系”系列丛书。

　　研究工作是一项艰巨而浩繁的工程，永无止境，我们追求完美，反映客观存在，却又不免耽于学识浅陋，与预期目标有所差距，所幸抛砖引玉亦是一种美德，期待同行对“湖南省博物馆藏品研究大系”系列丛书的针砭。同时，感谢参与本丛书研究工作的所有同事，感谢出版社及编辑的辛勤劳动。谨以为序。

湖南省博物馆馆长、研究馆员

2012年12月

Preface

　　Hunan, known since ancient times as “the land that is blocked on all four sides” “blocks  the Yangtze River in the north, joins the Five Ridges in the south and borders Guizhou and Sichuan in the west. Lush green  vegetation is seen everywhere.” The land is surrounded by green mountains on three sides and the Yangtze River on the fourth side. This enclosure of mountains and water has created such exquisite scenes as  and “the three parts and the four rivers of Hunan”, and constituted the unique natural environment of Hunan. The water and land of a place nurture the people living there. The secluded wonders and beautiful features that cannot be hidden by the mountains and rivers have molded  the  natural features  and personality of the people and culture of Hunan.

　　Mankind is the  carrier of civilization. Early people, with  hardship and ingenuity, created the long-standing history and civilization of Hunan. In remote antiquity, the Patron of Agriculture created  the Chinese civilization that shone down through the ages; during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the State of Chu prospered here and Qu Yuan immortalized The Songs of Chu with his verses; Jia Yi, the imperial tutor, composed Ode to the Owl to express his unfulfilled great ambitions, thus establishing  the sentiment of worrying about the people and loving the country; Cheng Hao, Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi of the Song dynasty established the academy of classical learning to teach Neo-Confucianism and aggregated the great achievements of the Hunan school of learning; Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang, Hu Linyi and Peng Yulin of the Qing dynasty led the Hunan army to ride the whirlwind of history and won the name of “nine out of ten generals came from Hunan”; famous figures  of modern times set people afire with their words, expressed their opinions about the world, and ushered in the new age of a towering China. Time flies and the years run on; the mountains and river remain the same, but the ancient sages are nowhere to be found, let alone the ordinary people of old.

　　The wheel of history turns  and the big waves of time and space wash away the sand. The things are still there, but men are no more the same ones. However, civilization and spirit will live forever, because such is the memory of humans. Because humans have memories and are good at memorizing and using them, civilization has been able to continue and flourish. Such memories cannot come from nothing. Memories and civilizations are dependent on the physical evidence of the past. This  evidence appears in many different forms. One classical work, one piece of historical information, one category of objects, one compact disc and even the bodily remains of a person can all be considered as physical evidences recording the progress of human society. Together with human knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, laws and customs, they constitute the great system of cultural heritage. The testimony of the profundity of Hunan civilization is seen in this physical evidence  and in the relatively imperishable memories based on them.

　　Museums can be described as one of the symbols and witnesses to  the progress of human civilization. Museums gather together the physical evidence that symbolize the civilization of  human society, makes them accessible to the public through displays, exhibitions and social educational programs, and constructs a bridge that connects the past with the present and civilization with memories.  The very nature of museums lies in the fact that they are social educational institutions based on the collection, study and display of physical evidence. The close relationship between physical evidences and cultural heritage is reflected in the four basic functions of museums. The act of collecting physical evidence fully illustrates the relationship between museums, physical evidence and cultural heritage, while the demand of another basic function of museums – to carry out in-depth researches on the physical evidence – demonstrates the importance museums attach to the content of the cultural heritage as reflected by this physical evidence. Without a doubt, museums have the necessity and the unavoidable responsibility to study the physical evidence, because this will form the basis for the museums’efforts to improve their collection series so that the displays and the contents of education can remain on a scientific track and the museums can enlighten people’s minds and  in an active and healthy way.

　　Hunan Provincial Museum, as the largest comprehensive history and art museum of the whole province, was founded in the early 1950s. It is one among the first batch of Class A museums of China and a state-level key museum jointly built by the central and provincial governments. With a current collection of about 180,000 sets of physical objects that include cultural relics from the Paleolithic age all the way to modern times, it is an important window through which the Province of Hunan displays and continues Hunanese culture at home and abroad. The precious cultural relics from the Han tombs at Mawangdui have provided a solid base for the formation and development of the world’s Mawangdui studies, with the ancient corpse and the manuscripts and bamboo slips on medicine constituting important first-hand materials for the study of Chinese medicine and biology; the bamboo slips, wooden tablets, books copied on silk and paintings on silk are indispensable resources for  study of  philology, art history, the history of thought and the history of customs. The tens of thousands of autographs we have collected over the past decades of more than two hundred historical figures of modern and contemporary times such as Wei Yuan, Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang, Peng Yulin, Hu Linyi, Li Hongzhang, Huang Xing, Cai E and Tan Yankai constitute a unique part of our modern and contemporary cultural relics and extremely important first-hand historical materials for the study of modern and contemporary Chinese politics, economics, military affairs and culture; and the Shang and Zhou bronzes, the Guqin from the Western Han to the Qing dynasty, exquisite ceramic works from the Eastern Han to the Sui and Tang dynasties, and the outstanding works of painting and calligraphy by famous people since the Tang dynasty in our collection have even more influence and academic value in China.

　　In recent years, Hunan Provincial Museum has made great achievements in its scientific researches and has accumulated a large number of scientific research results in the areas of cultural relics, museology, displays and exhibitions, artifact conservation, education and popularization, cultural relics authentication, and art history. We have completed over 20 state, provincial and ministerial-level scientific research subjects, and published over 60 related treatises and more than 300 related papers. However, with the implementation of the second phase of the reconstruction and extension project, the future first-rate infrastructure will be in more need of the support of first-rate displays and scientific research results. Only through the further systematic, complete and in-depth scientific researches on the collections can we plan displays of a higher level, better continue our outstanding of historical and cultural heritage, and fully exert the social functions of our museum. For this purpose, we have made a unified arrangement and, following the principle of highlighting the special features of our collections, plan to start in the next few years from the areas that we have accumulated many results and thus have a solid foundation, such as the cultural relics from the Han tombs at Mawangdui, bronzes, ceramic works, paintings and calligraphies and autographs of famous personages. We plan to make steady progress and maintain a flow of high-quality scientific research results each year so as to form the series The Complete Works of the Collections and Research of the Hunan Provincial Museum.

　　Research work is an arduous and boundless project. We pursue perfection and try to reflect the objective reality, but our goals are often held in check  by our limited knowledge. Fortunately, it is also a virtue “to cast a brick to attract jade”, so we welcome comments and criticisms from our peers on this series. At the same time, I express my gratitude to all my colleagues participating in this series of works and to the publishing house and its editors for their diligent work. This serves as a preface.

Chen Jianming

Director and Curator of Hunan Provincial Museum