From Trash to Treasure

Abstract

Since 1951, salvage archaeologists in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have retrieved tons of ancient artifacts from municipal scrapyards, refineries, and industrial development sites. They evaluated the artifacts for quality and distributed them to Chinese museums, libraries, hotels, restaurants, and art dealerships, which promoted the objects as representative of China’s ancient past. This article examines the salvage archaeology program in Shanghai, one of the largest in the country. Shanghai evaluated metal and paper scrap from collecting stations throughout China. Salvage archaeologists in this program benefited from movements such as the Great Leap Forward (1958–1961) and the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), as these movements allowed them to collect unprecedented quantities of ancient coins, standard weights and measures, weapons, agricultural implements, and ethnic minority artifacts. The program created museum and library collections across the PRC, and changed the distribution of bronze artifacts both in China and overseas. Covering the history of salvage archaeology in Shanghai over four decades, this article argues that “trash picking” increased the availability and visibility of bronze and textual artifacts throughout the PRC. It further argues that salvage archaeology shaped what Chinese people regard as relics of Chinese civilization.