Definition, Characteristics, and Categories of Cultural Relics

Definition: Cultural relics are products of culture and precious historical relics in the process of human social development. It reflects the state of people's transformation of the world from different fields and perspectives, and is a physical material for studying human social history.

Characteristics: Cultural relics are survivors of similar objects in the long river of history. Only cultural relics can break through the limitations of time and space, give history a sense of texture, and become the carrier of historical images. This is something that nothing can replace, therefore, it is an item that cannot be reproduced. The cognitive, educational, and notarial functions of cultural relics constitute the manifestation of their characteristics.

Category: All cultural relics are historical relics. Due to political needs, cultural relics from the old democratic revolution after the Opium War in 1840, the new democratic revolution after the May Fourth Movement in 1919, and the socialist revolution and construction period after the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 were designated as "revolutionary cultural relics". Therefore, China is accustomed to dividing cultural relics into two categories: historical relics and revolutionary relics. According to the provisions of the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Cultural Relics, cultural relics can be divided into two systems: cultural relics protection units and cultural relics collection. According to the value of cultural relics, there are also levels. The current key cultural relics protection units in China are divided into three levels: national level, provincial (city, autonomous region) level, and county-level. The cultural relics in the collection are generally divided into three levels. The first level collection is a special collection, and the second and third level collections are basic collections second to the first level collection. In addition to these key cultural relics protection units and collections at different levels, there are also other historical sites, cultural relics, and scattered cultural relics. They should also be treated correctly from the perspective of cultural relic protection.

Principles and Methods of Cultural Relics Appraisal

In human history, people have made a large number of replicas or counterfeits of cultural relics for various purposes. Among the "cultural relics" we encounter, they are often true and false, mixed with good and bad. There are also some cultural relics that have been obscured in the long and changing years, making it difficult for people to have a correct understanding of them. Therefore, the most important task before using cultural relics is to identify them.

Why can cultural relics be identified? Because the world is known. Everything in the material world, from the micro world to the macro world, is constantly in motion and change. Any cultural relic is generated under certain historical conditions and cannot exist without time form. It always changes continuously in its own inherent order of development in the process of history. It is precisely in this way that cultural relics, as the result of material movement, become historical witnesses. It is impossible to recreate an object that is exactly the same as a cultural relic beyond time and space. Just like a person cannot step into the same river twice. Therefore, cultural relics cannot be replicated. The term 'replication' commonly used today is only imitation or imitation, which achieves a specific purpose by producing similar sensations to human senses. In theory, any counterfeit or "replica" can be identified.

Cultural relic appraisal is a branch of historical science. The general principles of historical science apply in principle to the study of cultural relic appraisal. At the same time, the study of cultural relic appraisal has its own specific research object, which is the practice of ancient and modern people in appraisal of cultural relics, including its appraisal theory, knowledge, and methods. Cultural relic appraisal is a relatively independent applied discipline in the field of culture.

The basic methods of cultural relic appraisal are classification, comparison, and identification.

Cultural relics can also be identified using a purple light jade flashlight. Let's take 365 purple light as an example to observe the detection effect