and_Unearthed,and,Rediscovered

　　A series of related coincidences—and some very diligent work on the part of several individuals—brought an unprecedented China-themed program to a museum in New England this year. The events that led to the exhibition of some of the most remarkable archaeological artifacts unearthed in China in the past 20 years affected lives on three continents. It shed new light on and exposed audiences to events spanning the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-557), the restive dawn of the 20th century in China and the summer of Beijing’s hosting of the 2008 Summer Olympics.
　　At the center of this saga is the Sterling and Francine Clark Institute (the Clark) in Williamstown, Massachusetts, a college town in the rolling Berkshire hills. Williamstown is as far from China’s cities in character as any American locale, but the trio of China exhibits at the Clark is a true reflection of its legacy. Before the institute’s founder, Sterling Clark, found fame as a philanthropist and art collector, he was an explorer who led and documented an expedition through northern China in 1909.
　　“People know Clark as an art collector and horse breeder—this gives some insight into his ‘pre-history,’” said Michael Conforti, director of the Clark, referring to the institute’s renewed interest in Clark’s China experience, which he chronicled in a detailed travelogue, “Through Shen-Kan” (referring to Shanxi and Gansu, the provinces the group explored and mapped). The Through Shen-Kan exhibit displays objects from that journey, such as the surveying instruments used to map the route and some of the animal specimens the group collected and sent to the Smithsonian Institute.
　　Clark’s book is a historical and scientific treasure on its own, but it also played a role in the museum’s opportunity to display recently excavated findings from Shanxi and Gansu in Unearthed: Recent Archaeological Discoveries from Northern China, which runs through mid-October this year. The star attraction of Unearthed is a complete sarcophagus built from sandstone. Dating from the 5th century, it is the only object of its kind—an 8-by-12-foot sarcophagus modeled on a traditional Chinese house, built for high-ranking official Song Shaozu during the Northern Wei Dynasty and excavated in Datong, China’s northwest Shanxi Province, in 2004. At 10 tons, the structure was so heavy that the Shanxi Provincial Museum could only display its facade, so its run at the Clark marks the first time the complete sarcophagus is on view.
　　Also in the exhibition are several objects from a tomb discovered in 2009 in Gansu. Among the most striking pieces in that collection are terra cotta tomb guardians over four feet high, still retaining faint hints of the original paint jobs they received during the Tang Dynasty (618-907).
　　“The official reports on these sculptures have not been published yet; they have never before been seen by the public, and they will change the way we look at tomb sculptures,”says Annette Juliano, a professor of art history at Rutgers University’s Newark campus, a scholar who worked with the Clark to secure the artifacts.
　　This is the museum’s first ever archaeological exhibition, and it has more in common with Through Shen-Kan than just its China theme. All three are part of a Web of stories that span a wide historical, geographical and cultural range: the rediscovery of an art collector’s “prehistory” as a China explorer; the exhibition of a remarkable and unique tomb never displayed in China; a summer expedition from Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, to Chengdu, Sichuan Province, for two Oxford University students; and an extensive and arduous photojournalism project executed by Chinese photographer Li Ju.
　　
　　None of this would have happened, says Conforti, if not for a Beijing traffic jam. A representative of the Clark, visiting with officials in the Chinese capital to try and get them to accept a loan of the Clark’s French impressionist collection, found himself stuck in Beijing traffic with one of those officials. As a way to building rapport, he mentioned Sterling Clark’s travels in China and the fact that the 100th anniversary of the expedition was approaching.
　　That conversation led the Clark to reconsider how it was handling that period of its founder’s life. They posted the travelogue’s text online along with more than 100 photos taken during the 1908 expedition—landscapes, people, and religious sites throughout Shanxi, Shaanxi and Gansu.
　　Once posted, the book and the images quickly caught the attention of three people who were so captivated by the material that they each ended up dedicating months to giving it new life. Shi Hongshi, a professor in Xi’an, translated the work, and his translation led to a four-part CCTV series on the expedition. Li set out to photograph the current scenes at each of the sites photographed by the Clark expedition. And a chemistry student at Oxford University, Ginny Howell, recruited two friends and set out to retrace Clark’s steps in the summer of 2008, 100 years after the original expedition.
　　Together with classmates Victoria Thwaites and Luca Del Panta, with support from the Clark and the Oxford University Exploration Club, Howell traveled from Taiyuan to Lanzhou of Gansu Province (where the Clark expedition ended), then down to Chengdu, in the summer of 2008. The group photographed their journey and wrote about the changes they observed on a blog. It was the first trip to China for both Thwaites and Howell, and the trip not only produced a new basis for comparison between the Shen-Kan of Clark’s time with that of modern-day China—it also impacted the remainder of the students’ time at Oxford. Howell became a chairperson of the Exploration Club until she graduated, and Thwaites, who had to do medical training for her role as the trip’s medical officer, is now pursuing a graduate degree in medicine, a choice she traces to that summer in China.
　　While the Oxford students’ interest lie in retracing Clark’s trail and seeing China for the first time through the prism of a century-old expedition, Li brought a different perspective to Clark’s legacy. He set out to photograph each of the scenes found in the book, for a side-by-side display with Clark’s photos. The results, showcased in an installation called Then & Now at the Institute’s Hunter Studio at Stone Hill, offer a peek into the ways that China has changed, and the ways it has stayed the same over the past 100 years.
　　Li’s photos, Shi’s translation, the Oxford students’ summer trip, and the antiquities in Unearthed all give new life, a century later, to Clark’s expedition, and have opened up new cultural and academic links between Taiyuan, Xi’an, Beijing and a tiny college town in the Berkshire hills.