| The "Heavenly Horse - The Horse in Chinese Art and Culture" exhibition will be held from July 16 to October 13, 2008 at the Hong Kong Museum of History, featuring 60 sets of artifacts selected from various heritage institutes in China.
Picture shows one of the exhibits, "Bronze night pass inscribed with scripts of five languages" from Yuan dynasty (AD 1279-1368). The top of this night pass is made up of two interlocking curls, with a hole bored through the middle, in which sits an iron ring. Scripts in five different languages are inscribed on the two sides of the pass. On one side, the Chinese character "Yuan" is inscribed in the centre, surrounded by the Chinese and Uighur scripts for "Night Patrol Pass, Tian Reference, No. 11". The other side is divided into two sections, the outer one decorated with patterns of curling grass, the inner one inscribed with Phagspa, Mongol, Uighur and Huihe scripts. The night passes were used as a passport at the empire's postal stations at night in the event of military emergencies. The five different scripts on this night pass indicate that the Yuan dynasty was successful in setting up an empire-wide postal system that connected different nationalities together. The pass is a priceless artefact from the postal system of the Yuan dynasty. |
