The Beiliang Juqu Anzhou Buddha Temple Stele is considered an important lost cultural artifact of China. Historically, the only trace it left behind was a set of incomplete rubbings.
In 1906, influenced by the constitutional movement, the Qing government dispatched five ministers, including Duanfang, to visit the West and study constitutional systems in preparation for drafting a constitution.
While visiting the Museum of East Asian Art in Berlin, Duanfang was astonished to see the Beiliang Juqu Anzhou Buddha Temple Stele. As a scholar of epigraphy, he understood its preciousness and importance, so he requested to make rubbings.
With the cooperation of the Museum of East Asian Art in Berlin, Duanfang made a set of rubbings and brought them back to China. This became the last known trace of the stele.
"It seems these items must have come from the Berlin Museum of East Asian Art," Liang En said while tapping his phone screen with his index finger, looking at Jeanne beside him.
"I think we might need some time to go through everything inside and find a way to take back the artifacts the Germans looted from China," Jeanne replied.
In the following work, Liang En and his team began to open and inspect the contents of each box to determine what they were and where they came from.
Thanks to the high ground and the thick concrete and steel of the basement, the artifacts inside were well-preserved, making it easier for Liang En and his team to examine them.
During their inspection, they found many artifacts from China, such as statues of gods, Brahman statues, and even a complete Nirvana statue of Buddha.
Undoubtedly, these murals were likely stolen from some grottoes. Additionally, there were some Buddhist items, like the lotus bases of sculptures with only the feet remaining, and some well-preserved ancient documents.
These items were packed in boxes, some weighing over a hundred kilograms, while others were only thirty to forty kilograms.
Regardless of the weight, as long as Liang En saw an artifact from China, he would store it in his card-formed space.
By nightfall, Liang En and his team had cleared half of the boxes and stored them in the space. Among these boxes, the most precious artifacts were murals from the Kizil Grottoes.
From 1902 to 1914, the Berlin Museum of Ethnology (the predecessor of the Berlin Museum of Indian Art, now known as the Berlin Museum of Asian Art) sent the TLF expedition team to China’s Western Regions four times.
The first two expeditions took place in 1902–1903 and 1904–1905, mainly focusing on the TLF area. The latter two expeditions occurred in 1906–1907 and 1913–1914.
The expedition team stayed in the Kucha region for a long time, taking a large number of murals from the Kizil, Kumtura, Sengim, and Mazabaha grottoes. They also looted sculptures and Buddhist scriptures.
The murals taken by the German expedition team mainly came from the Kizil Grottoes. During the third expedition, besides taking murals, they also photographed the exterior, cave structures, and murals of the Kizil Grottoes.
While looting and destroying the artifacts, the Germans numbered, named, and made detailed records of the cave structures, mural contents and layouts, and decorative patterns.
The records of the Kizil Grottoes’ structures, subject matter, and distribution were mostly completed during this time. In the boxes Liang En found, there were two filled with these original documents.
The most barbaric fourth expedition saw the Germans taking far more murals than the third. To this day, inscriptions by the German expedition members can still be seen on the walls of caves 177, 213, and 223A of the Kizil Grottoes.
According to Liang En's inspection, there were over five hundred mural fragments from the Kizil Grottoes, covering more than 500 square meters, from over forty caves.
In another world, these murals were kept in the Berlin Museum of Ethnology's Indian section. In the mid-1920s, to publish a catalog of the murals, the museum sold a few murals and sculptures to raise funds.
Additionally, a few murals were given away by the leader of the fourth expedition, Albert von Le Coq, as private gifts.
Of course, such actions are unthinkable in modern times, but back then, it was relatively common practice.
However, the greatest loss came from World War II. During the Allied bombings of Berlin, the murals in the Berlin Museum of Ethnology on Königsplatz suffered the most damage, about 40%.
The destroyed murals were all exhibited masterpieces, many from the Kizil Grottoes. In 1945, when the Soviet Red Army occupied Berlin, they took many artifacts, including some Kizil Grottoes murals.
These artifacts are now in the Hermitage Museum in Russia and were not displayed until 2008 in the Hermitage Museum's exhibition of Western Region artifacts.
Given that the Russians declared all wartime trophies as theirs and refused to return them, the chance of these artifacts returning home is virtually nonexistent.
But in this world, these items somehow were taken out of Berlin and sent to this remote corner near Prague, where Liang En discovered them.
"Why were these precious artifacts forgotten here for more than half a century?" Jeanne asked, frowning after hearing Liang En's explanation.
"According to what we saw before, the escorting army was certainly more than a platoon. The likelihood of so many people dying simultaneously is very low," Liang En replied, spreading his hands.
"It's also possible they ran away. Before the 1990s, Chinese artifacts had little economic value beyond their historical significance, so few people were interested in them," Liang En explained.
The international price of artifacts is often related to the economic level of the country they come from, especially the number and willingness of people from those countries to spend money.
For instance, in the early 21st century, during the era of Russian oligarchs and soaring oil prices, Russian artifacts sold very well on the international market, with Russian buyers willing to pay high prices.
Aside from such situations, the international artifact market controlled by Westerners generally does not consider non-Western artifacts as highly valuable, so they are not seen as treasures.
Therefore, even if the transporters survived, they might not have cared about these seemingly worthless dirt blocks, making it normal for this place to be forgotten.
The reason why this place was forgotten can only be speculated for now. However, during the second day's search, besides more artifacts, they found documents that roughly explained the reason.
In a yellowed folder with black text and the blue crispy eagle seal, Liang En confirmed it was a document from the late World War II Germany.
The document content was simple: it allowed the people with the document to leave Berlin with the artifacts to complete the artifact hiding mission. There were also several passes to let them leave Berlin.
However, Liang En immediately felt there was something wrong with these documents, so he used a 【Appraisal (N)】 card and found out that the documents were forged.
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