Unveiling the past

Changxin Palace Lamp. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The new season of a documentary series, Every Treasure Tells a Story, will show the stories behind the artifacts from three periods in imperial China, Xu Fan reports. 

When director Pan Yi visited the Hebei Museum in 2016, she saw the Changxin Palace Lamp for the first time. The gilded bronze lantern－unearthed from a tomb in 1968 that was buried with a vassal king's wife over 2,000 years ago－is one of China's most well-known artifacts.

"For a moment, time seems to have stopped moving forward. The lamp really looks like a young maid in the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 24) who is kneeling down to serve her master," Pan, 34, said during a news conference in Beijing on July 13. 

"I was very curious about what 'she' had seen in the palace and what 'she' would think about the modern world if 'she' could come alive," she added.