A treasured view of history returns

The new season features artifacts from the collections of 18 museums across the country, some of which can be traced back to the third century, when China began a period of frequent turbulence and the simultaneous rise of emerging states-an era, however, that was fertile for the arts and saw culture flourish, which was given a boost by exchanges between different ethnicities. The show continues on through the extravagant era of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) during which a unified empire ushered in one of the most powerful and prosperous periods in the nation's history.

Xu Huan, the documentary's chief director, says it was a time when humanistic awareness was awakened and arts and culture boomed, and it was also a period when Chinese society became more inclusive and diversified. She says the new episodes not only cover the lifestyles of scholar-officials of the Wei (220-265) and Jin (265-420) dynasties along with the imposing strength of the Tang Dynasty, which people are familiar with, but they also shed more light on the physical evidence of the development of the various periods' manufacturing, engineering, legal systems and export industries.