live on demand romkids

Ask ROM Anything: Dr. Chen Shen

Every Thursday at 10 am on Instagram we chat with a different ROM expert ready to answer your burning questions on a different subject. This week on Ask ROM Anything we speak to Dr. Chen Shen, senior curator and archaeologist of Ancient China at the Museum. 

He has conducted fieldworks on prehistoric sites since 1997, and is teaching and publishing on art and culture of ancient China. He loves ancient Chinese jades, bronzes, and ceramics, among many other artworks 

Ask Chen Anything

Q. How’s “Quarantine Life”? 

A. No complaints. We do what we have to do to stay safe. I view this as learning, a way of adaptation. As an archaeologist and a historian, I study many events about adaption during a changing world. Ancient civilizations survived, so will we. 

Book Cover

Q. What books or resources on ancient China do you recommend? 

A. I would say the best book about art and culture of Early China is the one I am writing now (sorry, you have to wait for a bit longer!). Currently, the book I am using for my class [at the University of Toronto, where I also teach] is Routledge Handbook of Early Chinese History. I have also recommended this book to my niece, Sherry, who is a university student. Oh, and I wrote a chapter for this book. 

rock formed into arrowhead

Q. What is the oldest artifact in the Chinese collection at the ROM? 

A. The oldest-dated Chinese object displayed at the ROM is this stone arrowhead. It is dated between 35,000–10,000 years old, during what we call the Upper Palaeolithic. It was delicately flaked and could be hafted to a long shaft used for a bow-and-arrow or a spearhead. This arrowhead was the most powerful killing weapon at the time, of course, this was before stone arrowheads were replaced with the metal heads. 

Detail of a bi disc created from polished jade.

Q. What is the origin of the bi-disc? What is the meaning or/significance? 

A. You challenge me to answer this question in a short answer! Usually I write 3,000 words for this. 

The idea of bi disc probably comes out of the earliest form of the jade era, 8,000 years ago in China.

Later, ancient Chinese people played around with a circle slab with a hole in it and figured out how they might see the night sky clearer and better through the hole. So, starting sometime 5,000 years ago, the bi disc became a precious object used by religious priests to worship the heavens. This idea and tradition continues through the entire Chinese history. Bi discs like the one you see at the ROM were used for the last time at the court ceremony in 1912, the year the Chinese dynasty came to the end. 

Bonus: Check out bi-discs in the ROM's collections

This model of a large, fortified granary is of a construction type commonly found in Henan province.

Q. What do you think it’s the most recognizable object of Han culture among the ROM collections? 

A. I love most objects from the Han dynasty, because Han people were so smart and produced all sorts of beautiful things. If I had to choose one object that is a Han object, then it is this pottery model of a house. Just like Egyptians, Han people enjoyed bringing everything they owned to the afterlife with them when they died, but they could not actually bring the real things, so they produced models of them instead, like this house. 
 
This house is a copy of the houses commonly known in Han. Next time, if you come the ROM, you will find other models like this. When you see them, you will be able to image what the objects would have looked like in real life. 

Q. Are you an artist or an art lover? 

A. I am an archaeologist who teaches art and culture of Early China. So I am not an artist because I cannot sculpt and I do not paint. But I enjoy reading and viewing artworks every time I visit museums and art galleries. I feel I am very lucky to work at the museum and be surrounded by arts—that’ss how I grew up to love art. So I think everyone should come to the ROM often (when we reopen), even if you are not sure yourself whether you are an artist or an art lover. 

Q. Was art something all social classes could appreciate in China, or was it only for the rich? 

A. In ancient China, it is very hard to define what is art and what is not. If a landscape painting was art in ancient China, it was appreciated only by intellectual scholars or rich families. Sculptures of saints, buddha, Daoist figures, were created solely for religious purposes and less for art appreciation. Decorative art, such as objects like vases ceramic, bronze and lacquer were collected and bought by the rich. So, I believe most artists in ancient China were skillful but poor. 

Q. What are some of the Prehistoric technologies that you have researched? 

A. I study stone tool-making technologies in prehistory, a subject not usually looked at by the public. Today we are familiar with information technologies, but before 10,000 years ago, the only technology was the stone. Early humans effectively made and used stone tools to make a living. I examine stone tools under a microscope to determine how the stone tools were used: i.e., cutting skin, scraping tree bark, chopping trees, or digging soil. Therefore, studying stone technology, we reconstruct what the way of life looked like in the Stone Age. 

Dr. Shen working in the field

Q. What is the difference between archaeologists and art historians? You both study artifacts.  

A. Yes, both of them study objects, but from different perspectives. Studying objects itself is not the goal, the goals of studying objects is to understand the people and society behind the objects. When art historians and archaeologists decide to tell you different stories of people and societies, they will have to apply different methods and ways of examining artifacts. Normally we see art history emphasize on motif and decoration, and archaeologists focus on function, etc... but I think the answers ultimately reveal the big picture I explained above. 

Q. What is your favourite exhibition of arts in early China? 

A. As far as artworks of Early China are concerned, I would have to pick the terracotta warriors and horses exhibition. The sculptures are magnificent in terms of both size and expression. Did you know each of the 2,000 terracotta warrior sculptures have different facial expressions? 

Q. What are the biggest misconceptions or myth about ancient Chinese culture? 

A. Just of the top of my head, I would say that [often-repeated “fact”] that the Great Wall of China can be seen from the Moon. In fact, it is hard to see the Great Wall even when I am flying over Beijing. [But] it’s no wonder the Great Wall is one of the world’s wonders, a 2,000-year-old monumental structure that was erected to keep China safe from mobile groups from the west and the north. 

Q. What was it like to be a female artist in ancient China? 

A. Well, this is a rather serious question. And the answer is, I do not know. As strange as it may sound, ancient Chinese society did not appreciate artists, rather they were treated as craft persons or persons with skills. 

Although we have seen great artworks of ancient China in museums, none of them left their names on their works, like porcelains or furniture. Only paintings and calligraphies of ancient China retain artists names, but all appear to be male. Having said that, however, it is our job as researchers. and archaeologists to discover the role of female artists in ancient worlds from missing pieces of the puzzles.

Explore the rich sculptural legacy of the Shanxi and Henan provinces.

Q. What made you interested in joining the ROM? 

A. The ROM is Canada’s most prominent museum of art, culture and nature. With nearly 100 million objects pertaining to ancient civilizations, this is a dream world for any archaeologist.

When I was a graduate student at University of Toronto, I visited the ROM frequently and saw the objects that are familiar to those I dug up from the field, I dreamed one day I would work there and tell the stories of those objects. 

Figurine of horse and rider

Q. At the ROM we see a lot of horse figures. What significance do they have? Do we know the breeds?

A. Horses in ancient China, appeared as early as 3,200 years ago, they were exotic animals introduced from central Asia. The first emperor of Qin, and emperors of the Han dynasty (2nd century BC) fell in love with horses and wished to have them in the afterlife. That is why we have seen so many terracotta horses that archaeologists have excavated. The horses were then domesticated in China, but I am no expert on the breeds of the horses. Maybe you can come back to another session of Ask ROM Anything when we feature a ROM mammalogist. 

Q. Do you have a favourite region orexcavation site in China? Where and why? 

A. The areas I have chosen to do fieldwork are dependent on my research projects. If I need to explore how people lived 10,000 years ago and how they made microlithic stone tools in northern China, then I have to go to northern China to excavate those sites.  

Don’t tell my grant officers this, but, I like to continue excavating at the archaeological sites in northern China, like south Shanxi province, north Hebei province, and Shandong province, because I like the beautiful mountains, delicate local food (specially various kinds of noodles), and unknown fruits (you cannot find those in the market—don't ask me the names, I cannot remember). And especially, because the people of northern China are so nice, they always treat me with special welcome food, a sticky millet pancake. It is special because they take a lot of time to prepare. 

Q. What are the most significant inventions from China? 

A. Another burning question because it is tricky. Chinese textbooks say that China has four inventions: fire power, compass, printing, and papermaking. Well, if there is any disagreement on this, then we can debate that in the future. But today, I am going to tell you about something else. I think the most significant invention in ancient China is the noodle! Archaeologists discovered a noodle in a bowl buried 4,000 years ago on a site in northern China. It is the earliest known noodle and was made with millet flours. It is so significant because millions of us are still enjoying the noodle today—don't you think? 

Flint hand axe

Q. What’s the most futuristic ancient thing you’ve seen in your work? 

A. Wow, this is indeed a burning question. Let me think of what stuck with me during my early fieldwork. I must say, a one-million-year-old stone hand axe, similar to the one you would see on display at the ROM, could fall into this category.  

Why? Because I always compare it to the modern-day Swiss Army knife. It was carried around by the hominids who used it in multiple ways: cutting, chopping, slicing, projecting, and to knap* flint. So, if they wished to have a piece of flint—maybe to start a fire —they could use the tool to produce this. Cool right? 

*Knapping flint: is the process of shaping flint or other stone to create tools 

Vase

Q. What is the most amazing piece of Chinese art you’ve seen? 

A. I am always nervous when people ask similar questions to this one, because the answer is subjective. I can only tell you what I see is the most amazing thing, but you may disagree. Anyway, the most amazing artwork I have encountered in our storage room, which contains 40,000 Chinese objects, is a beautiful porcelain vase from the Qing dynasty, commissioned by Emperor Qianlong. 

He asked his designers and craftsman to work on a piece that had never been done before—he asked them to mix some European art elements into a Chinese motif. I imagine his designer and craftsman probably has no clue what their emperor was talking about, because at the time European gifts were only introduced to the Court. It is also amazing how the 18th century contemporary work turned into a very expensive antiquity item. 

Storage vessel is one of the few known examples of a hu decorated with lively scenes depicting various aspects of Eastern Zhou life.

Q. Do you have a favourite piece in the collection that doesn’t get the attention it deserves from visitors? 

A. Yes, one of my favorite pieces is one 2,500-year-old bronze wine vessel displayed in the ROM’s Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Gallery of China. Although it stands in a prominent case, visitors sometimes only pay their attention to its shape and functions, but likely do not see that there are more than 100 small human figurines engraved on the entire surface.  The pictorial scenes depict the war and peace during the period (481–221 BC) before the unification.  

Rooster depicted on the porcelain cup.

Q. Why are Ming era vases considered to be so special? Was there a big change in how ceramics were produced? 

A. The reason that Ming vases are special is because Qing emperors liked them, collected them, and copied them. If Emperors liked something, then everyone else had to like them. Some Ming vases have already become collectable items, like the small Chenghua marked chicken cup displayed ROM’s Forbidden City exhibition a few years back.  

And yes, there are a lot of changes between Ming and Qing ceramics, because Qing emperors loved the ceramics, which were innovative in porcelain design and production. Qing ceramics are sold in auction houses as antiquities, but in fact I would view them as 18th century “contemporary artwork.” 

Q. My question is about the dyes they used in their skills. How were they made? 

A. It varied depending on the raw material available. Typically, they were from botanic sources such as sappanwood, Chinese cork tree, pagoda bud or indigo. These are some of the commonly used dyes during the Ming and Qing dynasties. 

Two players sit at a low table that carries a rectangular slab in the middle.

BONUS QUESTION: What is the most interesting story of Chinese objects? 

A. Every object has a story. The ROM has 40,000 Chinese objects, so I could probably tell you about 10,000 stories. Oh my god, I just realized that! It is so hard to choose one piece out of 40,000, but I will choose one for you: a set of green glazed pottery figurines depicting two men playing a board game, dated to the Han dynasty (202 BC–220 AD). The story here is that the game we see these two men playing is lost, unlike chess or go (weiqi in Chinese), we don’t know how to play it.  But we have figured out that it has rules that determine the moves of the six stones, the use of the dice, and six tally bamboo sticks on each players hand. The game is recorded in ancient texts, called Liubo, meaning game of six. 

Explore More

Authored by: Cheryl Fraser