Riding the wind of rebirth

The *Sanshan Zhi* primarily describes foreign customs and products, mentioning: 'The sea moon, round like the moon, is also called an oyster mirror. The locals scrape and polish its surface, using the translucent segments to cover the skylight.' Later descriptions and usage are largely similar to this record.

"In his book 'A Commentary on Marine Products from Fujian' written during the Ming Dynasty, Tu Benjun added that 'in Lingnan it is called Haijing, and also Mingwa.'"

"After describing the oyster shell, the Qing Dynasty Anecdotes mentions: 'There are also shells that are thin and transparent, cut into square pieces with four corners. These are imported from the islands of India and Siam and are used in the same way.' Although the name of this type of shell is not explicitly stated here, based on the location and appearance described, it is very similar to the sea moon."

"It can be seen that the phenomenon of inlaying polished 'sea moon shells' into windows appeared at least as early as the Southern Song Dynasty. At that time, sea moon shells were also called 'oyster mirrors', 'sea mirrors', or even directly 'bright tiles'. Therefore, the 'oyster' in 'oyster shell windows' recorded in ancient books may not be the 'oyster' of 'oyster', but the 'oyster' of 'oyster mirror'."

"What's the difference between mica and moonstone?"

“Mica and moon shells are similar in color. When ground thin, they are both slightly transparent with a light brownish-yellow tint. However, mica is a hexagonal crystalline mineral, so the flat surfaces it can produce are much smoother than those formed by moon shells.”

“If we look closely at this window, we can see that its panes don’t have the hexagonal outline of the crystal edges of mica’s layered structure. Instead, they have a concentric circle-like texture.” Zhou Zhi took a dusting brush from a classmate, turned the brush around, and drew a semicircle on the more obvious texture of a larger window pane: “See, that’s it.”

"This is……"

“These are the growth lines of a shell, similar to the annual rings of a tree, except that the annual rings of a tree are circular, while the growth lines of a shell are fan-shaped,” Zhou Zhi explained. “Making a shell into a window involves processes such as cutting, so what we see is not the whole shell, but we can still find some basic features, such as the nacreous layer, the growth lines, and this area.”

"What is this?" Professor Ruan asked, looking at a thicker area on the windowpane where there were two solid lines, one long and one short, shaped like the number eight.

“This is a very important biological characteristic of the moon shell,” Zhou Zhi explained. “The right valve plate of the moon shell has two teeth of different lengths in a figure-eight shape, which are embedded in the groove of the left valve. Biologically, these are called ‘hinge teeth,’ which are completely different from the hinge teeth of freshwater mussels and oysters.”

The hinge teeth are where the shell connects the two shells. They are very strong and relatively thick. On the window plate, this part has the most obvious polishing marks. The purpose is to make it level with the surrounding shells. However, that part is the strongest and the least transparent. Even if it has been polished, it is still very easy to distinguish.

Professor Ruan and Lao Wang have completely believed Zhou Zhi's statement. These characteristics are very obvious. His research mainly focuses on planning and scale. He doesn't know much about the obscure details of these ancient buildings, but with a solid foundation, these obscure knowledge are just a thin layer of paper that he can easily understand.

"If it's a Ming Dynasty sea oyster shell window..."

“Then the scale of this ancient building will be elevated,” Zhou Zhi said. “To make such a large window panel, it would require at least twelve centimeters, or even thirteen to fourteen centimeters of sea moon shell.”

"Unfortunately, the current moon shells are generally very small, rarely exceeding eleven centimeters in size, and are usually harvested before they can grow large enough."

"What are we going to do with the data now?" a graduate student asked innocently.

“We collect them to make wind chimes, lamps, and small handicrafts.” Zhou Zhi was a little amused and exasperated. “They’re also used as inlay materials for lacquerware. In short, it’s very difficult to find seashells this big these days.”

"How do you know so much about this?" Old Wang asked. "Because there is a side room with a roof made of sea moon shells in the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City. A few months ago, during the restoration, it was discovered that the roof was made of sea moon shells. However, the restoration team later found that all the roof tiles were made from sea moon shells that were more than 14 centimeters long. The sea moon shells that can be found now are too small to make roof tiles that meet the needs of the restoration of the Hall of Supreme Harmony."

"Then what should we do?" Professor Ruan asked.

“There’s no other way but to repair the existing roof tiles and continue using them,” Zhou Zhi said. “For the parts that can’t be repaired, we’ll use celluloid replicas instead, and then continue searching for a large enough moon shell. The Yu Tang Foundation has already taken on this job and is preparing to expand the search to the whole world. Maybe we can find a large enough moon shell in the waters outside of the South China Sea?”

"They really have deep pockets," Professor Ruan said with great envy. "Cultural heritage preservation doesn't need to give way to economic development."

Zhou Zhi understood what Professor Ruan meant. Nowadays, many local officials like to use the slogan "everything should give way to economic development" as a pretext, which has brought great resistance to cultural heritage protection, intangible cultural heritage protection, and nature reserve protection. Without local cooperation, many tasks are difficult to carry out.

For example, officials at the Yangtze Alligator Nature Reserve raised a very troublesome question: which is more important, the development of 300,000 people or the protection of 200 Yangtze alligators? Who should give way to whom?

Although Zhou Zhi believes that this kind of question is actually a deliberate attempt to create conflict, it also shows from one aspect that the current leadership's awareness in this regard is not very adequate.

"In any case, the protection standards for this hall should be raised to a higher level, and it should be done as soon as possible," Zhou Zhi said. "Ideally, within the next few days."

"Why? Shouldn't we be working on the protection plan first?" Professor Ruan asked. "Why the rush?"

“Didn’t I just say that?” Zhou Zhi said, “The restoration of the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City is in dire need of these large Ming Dynasty tiles. Now that Elder Wang knows that there are similar items of the same size and date in Zhang Hall in Zhouzhuang, if he finds out that you have not done a good job of protecting this place, do you think he will submit a report to request these windows to be brought to the capital for the restoration of the Hall of Supreme Harmony?”

"What is the status of the Hall of Supreme Harmony? What is the status of the Zhang Hall? Which is more important, restoring the Hall of Supreme Harmony or protecting the Zhang Hall?"

Professor Ruan slapped his thigh: "Oh dear! Thank goodness you reminded me, Elbow. This task really can't be delayed. The National Museum's reputation for snatching good stuff is just too... big!"

"Actually, there's no need to envy their wealth," Zhou Zhi said. "These projects can apply for support from the Yu Tang Foundation, Professor Ruan, didn't you know?"

"Isn't the Yu Tang Foundation for making documentaries and rescuing cultural relics?" Professor Ruan said, "Like Zhang Hall, which is included in the local list of immovable cultural relics, it's not appropriate to raise maintenance funds through non-governmental organizations, is it?"

"Actually, this is a misunderstanding," Zhou Zhi said. "While a significant part of the Yu Tang Foundation's current work is, as Professor Ruan mentioned, filming cultural documentaries and protecting relics that have historical and cultural value but don't qualify as cultural relics, it doesn't mean that we can't get involved in those that do qualify as cultural relics, does it?"

"For example, in the rescue excavation work in the Three Gorges area, the Yu Tang Cultural Relics Protection Foundation invested heavily in the preliminary work, including project initiation, liaison, organization of professional teams, and field surveys. Ultimately, this provided the country with a clear understanding of the areas in the Three Gorges area awaiting rescue excavation, the age of the sites and relics, and their cultural value. This saved the country a significant amount of manpower, material resources, and financial resources for the later centralized investment of funds in rescue excavation." (End of Chapter)