A gold star for effort
Content creator becomes an online sensation by painstakingly replicating intricate ancient relics from the Sanxingdui Ruins using precious metals and traditional methods, Wang Qian reports.
[Photo/China Daily]
So far, Caiqian has uploaded about 50 crafting videos on the platform.
He remakes many objects such as pendants, bookmarks, chopsticks, mugs and game weapons like the Night Sky Sword from Japanese TV anime series Sword Art Online: Alicization－War of Underworld and the Magic Blade from Chinese animation series Scissor Seven.
He has also set up his own studio.
Zhu Yarong, the deputy curator of Sanxingdui Museum, told Chengdu.cn, a news outlet of Chengdu Media Group, that Caiqian's replicas have played an active role in the promotion of Sanxingdui culture. Technically, Caiqian's approach seems to follow experimental archaeology, which attempts to re-create or use structures or artifacts in order to learn more about old techniques based on primarily sourced archaeological material.
Such honest effort to understand, and actually build, ancient artifacts is not easy, and Caiqian's mission to replicate the golden rod was a tough one.
According to Sanxingdui Museum, the actual gold rod is 143-cm-long, 2.3 cm in diameter and weighs about 463 grams, and is made of gold-plated wood that boasts a gold leaf design wrapped around the length of its body. The leaf design is an exquisite 46-cm-long decorative pattern of arrows, birds, fish and people. Believed to have been used as a sacrificial tool, the rod is thought to have been a symbol of power in the ancient Shu Kingdom.
