Chinese museum found with 40,000 fake exhibits forced to close

A Chinese museum has been forced to close after claims that its 40,000-strong collection of supposedly ancient relics was almost entirely composed of fakes.

One of the artefacts on display at the Jibaozhai Museum Photo: Weibo

By Tom Phillips, Shanghai

1:24PM BST 16 Jul 2013

The 60 million yuan (6.4 million) Jibaozhai Museum, located in Jizhou, a city in the northern province of Hebei, opened in 2010 with its 12 exhibition halls packed with apparently unique cultural gems. But the museums collection, while extensive, appears ultimately to have been flawed. On Monday, the museums ticket offices were shut amid claims that many of the exhibits were in fact knockoffs which had been bought for between 100 yuan (10.70) and 2,000 yuan (215). The museums public humiliation began earlier this month when Ma Boyong, a Chinese writer, noticed a series of inexplicable discrepancies during a visit and posted his findings online. Among the most striking errors were artifacts engraved with writing purportedly showing that they dated back more than 4,000 years to the times of Chinas Yellow Emperor. However, according to a report in the Shanghai Daily the writing appeared in simplified Chinese characters, which only

came into widespread use in the 20th century. The collection also contained a Tang Dynasty five-colour porcelain vase despite the fact that this technique was only invented hundreds of years later, during the Ming Dynasty.

Museum staff tried to play down the scandal. Wei Yingjun, the museums chief consultant, conceded the museum did not have the proper provincial authorizations to operate but said he was quite positive that at least 80 of the museums 40,000 objects had been confirmed as authentic. Im positive that we do have authentic items in the museum. There might be fake items too but we would need [to carry out] identification and verification [to confirm that], he told The Daily Telegraph. Mr Wei said that objects of dubious origin had been marked very clearly so as not to mislead visitors and vowed to sue Mr Ma, the whistle-blowing writer, for blackening the museums name. He [acted] like the head of a rebel group during the Cultural Revolution leading a bunch of Red Guards and making chaos, Mr Wei claimed. Shao Baoming, the deputy curator, said at least half of the exhibits were authentic while the owner, Wang Zonquan, claimed that even the gods cannot tell whether the exhibits are fake or not, the Shanghai Daily reported. Chinas vibrant online community begged to differ, reacting with its customary barrage of disgust and ridicule.

One micro-blogger urged local authorities to re-open and re-brand the museum as China's biggest fake item museum. If you cant be the best, why not be the worst? mused the user, Jizhou magistrate. China is currently in the midst of an unprecedented museum boom with nearly 400 new museums opening in 2011 alone, according to government figures. But fake relics have proved a persistent thorn in the industry's side. In 2011, state media reported claims that 80 per cent of the fossils in Chinese museums were fake. Fake fossils are like poisoned milk powder that injure and insult visitors, a scientist from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences was quoted as saying.

Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2013