3D Digital Restoration of Zeng Hou Yi Zun Pan in Hubei Provincial Museum
TapTechNews, June 9th. The Hubei Provincial Museum released the 3D digital restoration result of the Zeng Hou Yi Zun Pan yesterday, which is a four-year research work. The Zeng Hou Yi Zun Pan was unearthed in 1978 and is one of the top ten treasures of the Hubei Provincial Museum. It is one of the most complex and exquisite bronzes in the pre-Qin period of China, and is known as the pinnacle of ancient Chinese bronze art. Due to its significant cultural relic value, it is among the first batch of cultural relics in China that are prohibited from being exhibited abroad.
The Zeng Hou Yi Zun Pan can hold hot wine in winter and iced wine in summer. The complete set of the utensil is about 42 centimeters high and weighs nearly 30 pounds (about 13.6 kilograms). The zun body is decorated with 28 dragons and 32 flat dragons, and the abdomen and foot are filled with flat dragon patterns and relief dragons; the plate body is decorated with 56 dragons and 48 flat dragons, and the foot of the plate is a four-round-carved double-bodied dragon. The dragon head, body and tail wind and twist, showing abundant vitality.
Due to the thickness and complex structure of the Zeng Hou Yi Zun Pan, traditional 3D scanning technology cannot digitize it. Therefore, the Hubei Provincial Museum cooperated with the The Palace Museum, spent 4 years using industrial CT technology to obtain the complete 3D structure model of the Zeng Hou Yi Zun Pan for the first time, and through digital processing, a 3D digital restoration video of the Zeng Hou Yi Zun Pan was produced so that the public can intuitively understand the structure of this heavy bronze.
This research reveals that the Zeng Hou Yi Zun Pan is composed of a zun and a plate, with a total of 98 castings. Among them, the zun includes 1 zun body and 33 accessories and 19 U-shaped lock buckles, and the plate includes 1 plate body and 44 accessories. They are connected together by casting, lead-tin soldering and copper soldering, and there are as many as 119 casting and soldering points in total. The whole utensil adopts various techniques such as mold casting, lost-wax casting, round carving and openwork carving.
Prof. Zhang Changping from the School of History of Wuhan University said that this is the first research to clearly show the internal structure of the Zeng Hou Yi Zun Pan, providing an in-depth understanding of ancient bronze casting techniques. He pointed out that the production process of the Zeng Hou Yi Zun Pan shows the ability of ancient craftsmen to decompose complex techniques into more detailed steps, and each part was cast separately and then combined together.
Qu Liang, director of the Institute of Cultural Heritage Conservation Standardization of the The Palace Museum, emphasized that the use of modern technology to digitally restore national treasure-level cultural relics has industrial demonstration significance and shortens the distance between the public and precious cultural heritage through video display. In the future, it is also planned to display it through 3D models, AR, VR, etc.
The project leader, Dr. Jiang Xudong, mentioned that although the Zeng Hou Yi Bianzhong has been successfully replicated, there has been no physical replica of the Zeng Hou Yi Zun Pan so far. He said that now with the digi tal model, it provides a basis for physical replication, and it is expected that a physical replica can be made in the near future.