The Lost Temple

This is the very interesting story of the uncovering of an old Tang dynasty Temple, which was first rediscovered when cultural relics were looted during building works in 1985.

The archaeological team had first to try and recover the missing treasures, which was a job in itself, given their value, and then to try and piece together what temple it was, and finally to try and work out how the items were arranged before the looting took place.

It is a long and involved story, and it has run so far over a period of 28 years, but, besides the intrinsic interest of the story, it also show hows attitudes towards their religious past have changed in China in recent years, and how much effort they are willing to put in to reclaim their history.

As the programme reveals its secrets only slowly I won’t spoil it here, but just say that there are some wonderful artworks uncovered in these two films, and it is worth staying with to see them.

I embed them here separately owing to a lack on playlists on the site. There is English narration, with some interviews in Mandarin, having English subtitles.