Three Thousand Years of the Stone Drum

The Qin people migrated east to the Qian and Wei rivers and carved ten stone drums to record their history in stone, preserving the epic of the Qin people. From the first cut made with Duke Wen's chisel, the stone drums have endured three thousand years of wind and rain. They were buried in wasteland, unearthed and brought back to light, moved into the Confucian Temple, gilded with gold, stripped of their gold by the Jin people and abandoned in the wilderness, recognized among the ruins by the people of Fengxiang, and celebrated in verse by scholars of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. Emperor Qianlong had new drums made as copies. During the Republic of China, Palace Museum staff wrapped the originals in quilts, packed them in wooden crates, and transported them thousands of miles south along railways and rivers, then thousands of miles back north. The stone drums cannot speak, but they remember every hand that lifted them and everyone who stood guard beside them. Three thousand years have passed, dynasties have risen and fallen, wars have burned, and lives have come and gone. The characters carved into the stone have grown faint and chipped, but they remain. The stone remains, and the characters remain. As long as the characters remain, the Qin people's origins remain. This is the story of the stone drums' journey through the ages, and of the people who remembered them.